Paper Cranes
by midori Haru
Summary: Meeting, attraction, courting, commitment. For most of the world relationships form in the normal fashion from start to culmination. Naturally normal isn't enough for Sesshoumaru. And he wonders why he runs into problems trying to build a relationship from the wrong end.
1. Under the Influence

Welcome to _Paper Cranes_. Like _Somewhat Happy Endings_, this story was spawned by a period of stress, difficulty with _Wild_ and profound irritation with certain prolific stereotypes. And Like _SHE_, one specific fic spurred me into a writing fervor. The story was _Lost Mate_ by Shellbabe. I did try to contact the author as I did Fortunesque in reference to my last fanfic, but received no reply. I debated posting back and forth for a while, but ultimately decided that, so long as I gave credit where it was due, made transparent the lack of plagiarism taking place, that posting this should be all right.

So, if you know Shellbabe or any new accounts used by the same person, please reassure him/her that I did not steal or copy and paste any part of her/his creative product.

For the same purpose, I acknowledge Rumiko Takahashi for her creative product as well, for without it Shellbabe, Fortunesque and I would have few less stories in the world.

**WARNING: **This fic is filed under **_DRAMA_** before **_ROMANCE_** and rated _**M,**_ should not be read with the intent or hope of finding fluff. Moreover it should be obvious that content contained herein is not for the faint of heart, immature, or obnoxiously close-minded/narrow-minded. _Things_ will happen that you may not agree with or enjoy. If you feel that this first chapter is a deal breaker for you because of the content, then don't read any further. **DO NOT **review to tell me so, you are basing your opinion and reaction on a fraction of the content included in this story. This chapter only covers a short span of hours in a story that traverses several continents and covers many years of experiences. I can support the behavior of my characters throughout this story having consulted with a rape and PTSD survivor. This will not be an academic essay by any stretch of the imagination. The point is to highlight that the situation exists and can be moved on from. That everyone is entitled to react and feel how they do. My very helpful support and friend has expressed frequent frustration with others telling her how she should feel instead of allowing her to find her feelings on her own. Not everyone falls apart immediately after a traumatic experience, sometimes they hold out for years as subtle symptoms come to light before breaking down and realizing they have a problem...This is called **PTSD **or **delayed PTSD**. It can precipitate from combat situations, physical trauma, emotional and mental trauma, child abuse, spousal abuse, domestic violence, and **rape**. It can go undiagnosed for years due to a lack of observation from intimate friends and family and prevailing denial from the victimized. Many survivors just want their life to continue on the way it started under their own power. Many want to forget they ever experienced whatever bad thing interrupted their life. They internalize it without addressing the trauma itself. Just because someone doesn't have a violent reaction immediately following a bad experience doesn't mean they're immune to the fallout.

due to continuing abuse of anonymity and guest reviewing all such reviews shall be deleted from here on out.

**Under the Influence**

"Are you sure you'll be alright taking him up by yourself, Kagome-san?" Hojo called after her slightly stumbling figure. "I'm sure we can get somebody to come down and get him or something. We aren't responsible for getting them into their apartments, just to their doors."

"Hojo-kun," Kagome grumbled back at him as she braced herself to shift the large body of their latest drunken charge to a more manageable position. "He lives alone. Who's going to come down and collect him from the van?"

It was a well-known fact that playboy son of multi-billionaire Taishou Hiroyuki viciously guarded his privacy. The paparazzi had learned that lesson years ago when the heir had melted four cameras of various intruders and a hand that was still holding its camera up to the elbow. The freelance photographer had attempted to sue Taishou Sesshoumaru for medical expenses and the cost of a new camera and wound up blinded by the inu's retribution. Sesshoumaru spent a week in lock up, being a legal juvenile at the time, and the camera man lost his livelihood.

For a brief period of time nobody attempted to take personal pictures of the Taishou heir without his express permission.

Luckily, the silver inu didn't care about pictures taken in public. So his reputation as the worst sort of cad was also common knowledge. A youkai of his ilk was exceptionally prone to sleeping around and drinking and just generally making the rounds of the young and unruly.

This wasn't the first time a safe ride had been called for Taishou Sesshoumaru, college senior and public bachelor of the year. Tokyo U had seen a spike in student applications the year he'd started to attend that had nothing to do with the school's prestigious reputation. And not all of those extra applicants had been female.

Higurashi Kagome had nothing to do with that sort of thing. She'd managed to get in on a full scholarship despite the exceptionally heavy competition. And she made a point of having very little to do with the circles the esteemed Taishou frequented. Kagome was at Tokyo U for one thing. And that one thing was turning out amazingly elusive.

She was set to transfer out at the end of the semester to finish her degree overseas and this was to be her last duty night with the SafeRides program. In fact, her shift was officially over fifteen minutes ago and as such she had volunteered to lug the drunken body of Taishou Sesshoumaru up to his penthouse apartment before heading back to the house she shared closer to campus.

"Surely we can get a doorman or landlord to take him upstairs." Hojo mumbled. Hojo had been her partner on a number of these long SafeRide nights and they'd become something rather like friends. Her only problem with him was his penchant for underestimating her and wanting to step in and help her at the first sign of difficulty.

She wasn't helpless. Overcoming adversity was her only proof of achievement. Curtailing her efforts before she could either achieve her goals or fail in the attempt kept her from marking her progress and growth. She liked Hojo well enough, but he often left her feeling smothered. It had been the subject of many discussions, most of them preceded by another failed attempt to get her to agree to date him.

Kagome didn't have time for a relationship like that, and if she did, Hojo would be the last she would choose. He was too clingy, like static, and too likely to be demanding. She really was all about her studies right now.

"Why should they have to be disturbed by his irresponsible drinking habits when we're already here and I'm capable of taking care of it myself?" Kagome huffed dragging the stumbling youkai towards the door being held open by a googly-eyed doorman.

Taishou-san wasn't quite falling down drunk, which she was thankful for, but it was a near thing. Normally, this was a building where guests had to be signed in by the tenant before being allowed into the elevators, but she doubted Taishou-san had the acute motor ability required to sign anything. Luckily, the attendant a the desk was obviously aware of her cargo and capable of realizing exactly the same thing that she already had. She had no intention of staying, and if she did, it would only be to insure the illustrious Taishou-san didn't die from his own recklessness. Even so, he made the attempt to get her name for the log books. "Miss," the attendant called her over to the desk, forcing the little female to drag the male who was head and shoulders taller than her completely out of her way to the elevators. Certainly not her ideal Thursday evening. She'd rather be home studying.

"Taishou's apartment please," Kagome declared almost imperiously. She had absolutely no intention of leaving a name. The SafeRide organization discouraged this kind of involvement for a number of reasons and she wasn't inclined to leave a written record of her presence here for a number of those same reasons. A soused youkai was likely to have any of a select range of reactions upon sobering up. One was to hunt down anyone to have seen them in their unruly, vulnerable state and eliminate the witnesses. Kagome had no desire to wind up a statistic.

"Can I get a name, please?" The attendant valiantly inquired despite his increasing fright as the youkai draped over her shoulder raised his dilated eyes to glare at him. Taishou-san, top floor apartment, had a formidable temper, drunk or sober, and had gotten more than a dozen building attendants and doormen fired from their posts on the spot.

"Why do you question me?" the drunken inu demanded, speech slurred and exaggeratedly drawn out to compensate for impaired neuron activity. Or so Kagome figured. Alcohol was a depressant after all. Then again, maybe the effects on youkai mental capacity were different from those in a human brain. It certainly took more of it to leave a youkai in a drunken state than a human because of differences in the inherent metabolic rates. Either way, it was clear he hadn't realized she was there and practically holding him up on his feet.

"I was questioning the young lady, Taishou-san," the attendant answered in a slightly squeaky, terrified voice. It was career suicide not to answer Taishou Sesshoumaru whatever his sobriety level. "I need her name for the registry before she can go up according to the rules." The uniformed man was starting to shake visibly as he clung to the rules. The rules were his only lifeline at this moment as most of the building's policies were in place because of Taishou-san's exacting standards.

To the attendant's undying relief, Sesshoumaru was no longer paying attention to the weakling behind the counter, instead his focus was on the fact that there was a young woman standing under his arm. One he couldn't ever remember fucking, which at this moment, seemed incredibly important.

"Miss," the attendant rallied one last time as the terrible Taishou's gaze freed him from the terrifying scrutiny of those golden eyes. He would definitely be having nightmares tonight and no doubt all of them would feature those eyes in a starring roll. "A name?"

"SafeRide," Kagome answered bluntly with a solid look that spelled out to even the fearful attendant that there would be no other answer given.

"Surely that is not your given name," Sesshoumaru slurred in an effort to flirt.

Kagome snorted as the fumes of his ingested alcohol ghosted across her face in an unpleasant cloud. She was certainly not impressed by his drunken charm any more than she had been by his very public and sober efforts to get into the pants of their economics professor at midterms. He probably wasn't even aware that she was in that class, which wasn't a major surprise. The class had over sixty other students in it. The only thing that kept her from being completely repulsed by him was the fact she was well-aware he hadn't done it for a better grade.

Taishou Sesshoumaru was only the second best student in the class. A fact that had been established prior to his sleeping with the professor. And he did sleep with her, Kagome was certainly aware of that after she'd accidentally overheard said professor crying when he dropped her flat the next day. Toki-sensei hadn't deserved that. Good-looking, greatly sought after or not, nobody had the right to treat people the way Taishou Sesshoumaru had a tendency to.

Kagome sighed as the attendant finally buzzed her through to the elevators and she pushed the call button. Sesshoumaru continued to make passes at her as they waited for the elevator to arrive. She ignored almost all of them while pondering what classes she had to study for. Finals were officially supposed to be held next week, but Kagome had arranged to take nearly all her exams early so that she could pack up and be at her new school in time for summer classes. The only one left to make arrangements for was, coincidentally, that economics class she shared with the drunken sot leaning unnecessarily into her.

"Tell me, are you really as eager to get me curled up in my apartment and buried in you as you seem?" the lascivious inu nearly purred into her ear, his effort was arrested by a quiet burp, ruining the effect. Not that she was effected anyway.

"I'm certainly ready to drop you off on your couch before I go home," Kagome scoffed quietly to herself as the elevator car dinged open to let them on. Unfortunately, she wasn't quiet enough. She should have known better than to express her repugnance vocally where he could hear her. She may have been used to being overlooked and ignored by the majority of the crowd, but there was no excuse for letting an inu know she didn't find him appealing.

With a snarl and a sudden hard shove to the middle of her back, Kagome found herself stumbling into the metal faced interior of the elevator and right into a mist of Taishou Sesshoumaru's recently sprayed toxins. Her eyes teared on coming into contact with the mist of his making and her throat burned as her surprised gasp drew the vapor into her lungs. Her skin began to tingle as the chemical cloud began to settle over her exposed arms and shoulders making her wish she'd kept her jacket on instead of shedding it earlier in the evening.

A moment later she found herself trapped against the chilled wall of the car with a drunken youkai pressed to her front.

A slightly detached clinical compartment of her brain observed that he'd released a poison specific to inu youkai courting in effort to lower her inhibitions, making it easier to seduce her. The burn of her lungs and irritation in her eyes would shortly pass as the toxin began to really set in, shutting down her pain receptors for the rough ride ahead. It wouldn't make her decide to have sex with the inu rubbing himself bodily against her front, but it would make her exceptionally aware of the muscles moving under her hand where it splayed against his chest in a pointless effort to push him away. It would send all of her sensations to the pleasure receptors in her brain, making physical ecstasy impossibly easy to achieve. No, the chemical wouldn't make the decision for her, for no chemical could, but it would make her incredibly sensitive to external stimuli. He would guarantee that stimuli was the type to lead her directly into temptation.

Clinically observant Kagome sighed in resignation, well aware that she might as well enjoy the experience, as he was definitely going to be very persuasive about letting him have his way. Especially since his claws were already down her loose fitting jeans and rubbing her through her panties.

Sensitive, virginal Kagome gasped breathlessly as the inu pressed his hot mouth over the peak of her straining nipple trapped under her tank top. The heat of his breath transmuted into a stream of liquid need that flowed from his mouth straight to the point where his clawed hand was manipulating her previously untried pleasure button. She thrashed mindlessly against the chilly wall, whether to bring on more of his touch or lessen it, she wasn't certain. Not that it mattered, he certainly wasn't going to let her get away now.

Through it all the elevator steadily rose ever closer to the youkai's abode. The glowing indicator lights went ignored as they slowly swelled in magnitude with each passing floor.

All Kagome could focus on was the increasing desperation to reach...something.

When the elevator reached its peak, so did Kagome as the vapor and Sesshoumaru's rubbing sent her body into an explosive orgasm that set her flying higher than the elevator car would ever go.

She came back to her senses with a sharp pain only to find herself bent face first over the arm of his sofa with Sesshoumaru buried cock deep under her skin. Her body burned with the reality of unused muscles being forced aside to accommodate a previously unknown intrusion and naturally her muscles tensed up defensively as a reflex.

A displeased growl rumbled from his chest and into her body via her recently invaded core.

That suddenly detached portion of her brain figured he was displeased that she had even felt the pain of her breached hymen. But then, there was no real way for him to know she had a slight natural immunity to youkai toxins. The problem was, in his inebriated displeasure, he could overdose her. Not that she could do anything about it if he did and it certainly wouldn't kill her. But it could cause permanent brain damage, such that would make it impossible for her to feel any kind of pain at all. That kind of damage would most likely lead to a fatal situation some time in the future.

Now wasn't the time for her to worry about it as Sesshoumaru yanked a claw full of her hair around the nape of her neck and forced her head up at an awkward angle from her bent position until her back arched out in a slightly disconcerting manner due to his refusal to allow his phallus to slip out of her since he'd already managed to successfully invade her flesh. He cupped his free hand in front of her face and released another dose of his mist then abruptly shoved himself deeper into her core. As was his design, she gasped her surprise, inhaling a copious amount of this latest dose of toxin.

Then he walked her in the direction of his bedroom half determined that the little female would never feel whole unless she was wrapped around his marauding sexual organ. Had Kagome still been coherent and privy to his thoughts, she would have observed that it was this masculine pride that drove him to break so many hearts. Luckily, hers wasn't on the chopping block.

Weak sunlight was what brought Kagome round the next morning, her brain fuzzy from the lingering effects of his toxic doses and her body raw and achy with overuse. She couldn't remember exactly how he'd used her or even how much and she probably would never remember all of what happened. All she knew for sure, was that he had certainly enjoyed her. Or so she assumed since he was still buried deep between her legs, though he, and his penis, were clearly asleep. Thank goodness.

Her eyes rolled and fluttered against the painfully bright fingers of light attempting to tickle her corneas through her lids. Carefully, Kagome opened her eyes to squint at the panoramic window smudged with what she could only assume were skin oils, her skin oils. Apparently he'd had her up against the window at some point. Such a mortifying thought. Thankfully he had no near, high rise neighbors and no paparazzi photographer was crazy enough to point their cameras in any direction close to Taishou Sesshoumaru's apartment.

With what felt like a physical version of a groan, Kagome carefully eased herself off the phallic organ snugly held intimately under her skin. The move caused the sleeping inu to temporarily tense his arm around her waist before settling into a deeper sleep. The minute his arm relaxed, Kagome crawled out from under it and swiftly attempted to find her clothes.

She was more than done here, thank you.

Her tank top was a lost cause as all that remained was a mass of tattered shreds. Her bra had apparently suffered a similar fate or so she assumed when she collected the pile of mangled wire and stringy cloth. Kagome rolled her eyes. Youkai did tend to be a little rough in their sexual relations, a hold over from their animalistic instincts. Clearly this translated to torn clothing.

Kagome was only glad that she hadn't woken up bloody as opposed to just sore. The hunt for her pants lead her to the front door where she found them closed under the door of his apartment. They'd obviously barely made it out of the elevator before impatient claws tore through enough of the waist to drop them like useless debris. She was beginning to be glad Taishou-san had never had any steady lovers as his destructive tendency would soon lead them to bankruptcy replacing clothing casualties of his libido.

She hadn't a clue as to where her panties had got to, perhaps rendered unrecognizable in the inu's quest to conquer her flesh. If she hadn't been in such a hurry to get out of the place Kagome would have made a more dedicated effort to locate them as the last thing she wanted to do was leave him a way to find her by scent.

In the tiny little room that existed between his front door and the elevator, she found her jacket from the night before obviously having fallen off after being loosened in his effort to fondle the tender spot sending up white flags between her legs. Its presence saved her from borrowing any of his clothing. Tying her pants up with a makeshift belt created from the scraps of her tank top, she donned her jacket and pushed the button for the elevator.

It was as she was waiting in front of the polished doors to the elevator that she noticed the glowing mark forming on the swell of her breast. Up until that moment she'd been able to ignore her appearance in effort to forget her discomfort of having little between her naked body and the world. With no shirt and no bra, she was forced to wear her jacket and pray that nobody thought much of the fact she had it zipped all the way up. It was as she was zipping it up and checking her reflection to assure herself that she was decent that the glow caught her eye.

The glowing mark was a harbinger of doom, the end of all her plans. It was a mark of the claimed. The wealthy Taishou Sesshoumaru, heir to the vast business empire that ranked third in the country, had taken a mate. She'd always expected to read about it in the newspaper someday or to overhear her classmates lamenting the great inu tying the knot with some female – or male. Taishou-san wasn't known to be too picky about his bed partners. They were male as often as female, or so she understood. Never had she thought to be this close to the travesty.

When this little glowing tattoo became common knowledge, her life as she knew it would be over. The mate of a Taishou was expected to have little else to occupy her mind. She would be forced to attend galas and banquets. She'd have to quit school and conform to the life of a high society matron.

She could see her life's goals evaporating into thin air.

Kagome glared at the mark and growled deep in her throat. Like hell she was giving up everything she was aiming to accomplish in her life because a drunken youkai bastard couldn't be bothered to keep it in his pants and out of her life.

She would just have to prevent this little nightmare from becoming public affairs. And she could do it, damn it!

When the elevator opened to allow her escape, Kagome had a firm plan in place. The first stop of her day was a trip back to the house she shared with her good friend Sango to do a little research.

No stuck up, reckless, cold-hearted youkai was going to mess up her life. No way.


	2. The Fall Out

I'm giving fair warning, the progress in this story is going to be slow. Kagome has long term life goals that will take her places she wouldn't be able to go stuck by Sesshoumaru's side. Sesshoumaru needs to learn a bit about how to treat women beyond getting naked with them. He's not a bad guy, just emotionally stunted...there's reason for that, but that comes out later. AS always, there's lots of growth to be had on both sides because I try to avoid uneven relationships.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from the first chapter of Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**The Fall Out**

On her ride to the ground floor, Kagome carefully purged the youkai contaminant from her body, not desiring to conceive anything from this one sexual encounter. The burn of her power working against the inner tissues of every orifice south of the border left her tingling almost pleasantly in a way she wouldn't have recognized before Taishou Sesshoumaru had seduced her. And in places she'd never desired to explore. Apparently it hadn't been enough for Taishou Sesshoumaru to conquer her in the missionary way, but he'd had to explore her rump as well.

Momentarily, her vision clouded over with the memory of her body pushed face first into the glass of his bedroom window, his fangs nibbling over her shoulder blade. Without warning her body flooded with the sensation of his semen warming her from the inside and her brain took euphoric flight with the added stimulant. When she came back down, he raked his claws over the skin just south of her left breast, raising welts where he dosed her again with his toxins. Then he withdrew his turgid length from her core allowing the reservoir of her juices and his seed to run warmly down between the upper portion of her inner thighs, causing her to shudder and moan. The moving warmth drew her attention like the bright lights en-spelled acid trippers. So focused was she on that singular sensation that it came as almost a shock when she felt him thrust deep and forcefully into her body through another avenue.

The rhythm he set soon robbed her of what little breath she'd managed to recover after the last peak he'd driven her to. Had she been even mildly coherent at the time, she'd have been pissed at his inconsiderate use of her untried and previously virginal body. He'd done nothing to prepare her body to receive his cock and ridden her as hard as if she were a woman well versed in the acrobatics of sexual intimacy. The only thing he'd done was make sure she felt whatever he did as pleasure and not pain with multiple doses of his courting mist.

It was only a few short minutes before the stimulation and the added dose of his toxin sent her careening into orgasmic space.

With a perturbed huff, she pushed aside the sudden memory in time to step out of the elevator and into the lobby. Kagome was not interested in being stuck with a male that forced her to enjoy his depravity by dosing her with chemicals instead of allowing her to feel the reality of it all. She wasn't a fan of pain, but she wasn't afraid of experiencing it. Pain was how you learned. How was she to learn what sorts of things she liked if she wasn't given a chance to experience discomfort and pain marking what she didn't like.

Not that it mattered, Kagome decided resolutely as the doorman kindly flagged down a cab for her. Being marked like this meant that no one who saw it would enter into any kind of sexcapade with her after this but the one that marked her. And there was no way in hell she was going to stick around so that he could repeat anything he'd done last night. She was no one's play thing, no one's property.

She gave the doorman a soft smile in thanks when a cab came to a rest by the curb. It was honest gratitude because, whether he knew it or not, he was helping to facilitate her escape. Kagome almost winced as she slid into the back seat of the taxi in anticipation of the pain she thought she should feel. At least she thought her bottom should be damn sore right now, she couldn't really tell. The effects of Taishou-san's toxins hadn't quite worn off yet though she'd purged all that remained of the actual demonic chemical from her body. Like a hangover, the alcohol may be gone but the dehydrated effects remained. The doorman shut the door of the cab after politely wishing her a good day.

Kagome softly told the cabbie to drive west for a couple blocks before she was willing to give him her address. The doorman was youkai, and she had no doubt that Taishou Sesshoumaru would be out to hunt her down the minute he realized she was gone and she had left wearing his mark. Youkai were possessive that way. When he finally grew desperate enough to ask for outside help, the doorman and building attendant would be the first he interrogated. She was more thankful than ever that she had refused to leave her real, actual name.

More than that, the fact she had left while marked was tantamount to declaring that she perceived Taishou Sesshoumaru unworthy to be her mate. Kagome nearly snorted, as far as she was concerned, he certainly wasn't the mate for her. Kagome wasn't interested in being a bird in the Taishou cage and she didn't need someone to save her from breaking a nail or choking on her own spit. She could sometimes save herself and that's what she was going to do.

The ride back to her house wasn't quick, the time of day left her stuck in traffic as people rushed around trying to get to work. Normally, Kagome preferred to take the bus, her budget didn't exactly allow for a lot of frivolous expenditures what with being a student and all and she was eco-conscious enough to always try and keep her carbon foot print as small as possible. But she wasn't crazy. Dressed as she was, even in the light of day, it was practically an open invitation for assault, if not full blown rape. The last thing she needed right now was for someone else to decide to take advantage of her. Even if they would probably wind up dead the moment Taishou Sesshoumaru found out about it. And he certainly would if she was delayed by that kind of attack. Surviving that sort of thing took time, more time than an inu would need to catch up with her.

Kagome shivered in the air conditioned cab as it finally pulled up outside the quaint little house she shared with her best friend Tanaka Sango and her pet firecat.

Sango was from an old, wealthy family of youkai exterminators sanctioned by the government. Her family took care of youkai who went insane and threatened the safety of human and youkai alike. As such, she had an extensive library detailing the characteristics of a number of different youkai species. Kagome, being an insomniac, often read her books late at night after her studying was finished. It was interesting stuff to know.

It was also pertinent information for someone like her, regardless of the situation she found herself in now.

Training for Exterminators was an informal affair conducted by apprenticeship within the family. Kagome was not an Exterminator. She was, however, something even more rare. Kagome was a miko.

The local belief was that miko used to be a great deal more prevalent in the human population. Many academics thought that the miko died out because they were no longer needed. Youkai and humans lived in peace these days, for the most part so they were no longer necessary for the protection of humanity against the longer-lived, more powerful race. The Exterminators provided sufficient policing against the insane.

This wasn't the entire truth, as Kagome well knew.

Youkai, as a general rule were long-lived, hardy creatures. Not much would kill them and the pain of injury didn't last very long when your healing ability erased all but fatal wounds in a few hours. So the oldest and more powerful grew insensitive to the day to day beauties and natural occurrences. In short, they grew exceedingly bored. Such ennui had lead to all sorts of illogical behavior that was originally only found in humans. To combat this issue, these youkai had cast about for something to engage them. Some waged lengthy, bloody wars over the smallest of insults. Some sought out the most dangerous quests and rarest treasures to be found. And others had pursued sex.

Adventurous sex had grown to be all the rage a few hundred years back amongst the higher youkai. And nothing was considered more delightful than adding the risk of real death to the guaranteed pleasures achieved in what the french termed "the little death".

A Few decades into what some historians termed the age of depravity, which coincidentally occurred around the same time as the Renaissance in Europe, it was discovered that miko gifted females did not necessarily lose their power upon the breach of their maidenhead. This was a revelation that occurred when a retired, married miko was attacked by a passing youkai lord and she managed to partially purify him. A number of years later, some braniac wondered what it would be like to bed a miko. Amazingly he chose to woo his miko, rather than attack her, and in so doing he learned that his lover lost much of her control in the throws of passion. The youkai came out a little singed and quite happily enraptured with the thought of doing it again non-stop for about a week before the miko lost all her control and purified him down to dust.

But it was too late then. The news was out and the possibility of dying in the act of fucking a miko was immediately voted the greatest way to die and the best experience to survive. The problem was that miko back in the day had no access to contraceptives. If she wasn't given the opportunity between rounds to purify the seed from her body and conceived, she was all but doomed to die. For Miko had exceptional difficulty in carrying and birthing young from their youkai lovers. Many died in childbirth before the youkai realized this truth.

After this truth made the rounds, a number of youkai who had surreptitiously marked their preferred miko lovers, refused to allow their miko mates to even attempt to carry their offspring, choosing instead to take youkai lovers to birth their heirs. Which, Kagome supposed, was fine so long as all involved were okay with it. What wasn't fine, at least in her mind, was that the miko were not allowed to take human lovers with which to have children too. This is what truly lead to the miko numbers dwindling. Miko bloodlines were severed by youkai amorous possession.

Only a handful of families, maybe, existed in Japan and still managed to birth miko. And training for the miko lines remained even more informal than the Exterminators. There was a large amount of literature covering the theory of manipulating reiki, but tutors were all but impossible to find. And most were only interested in it academically, because publicly, miko were considered extinct. Well, except the ones tied to youkai mates.

Kagome had trained under her Grandmother before her death, and while she was well-trained, true control often eluded her. Strong emotion generally caused her control to waver. So she had become incredibly intellectual as a form of self defense, and she only ever lived with humans, not that she was prejudiced in anyway. Humans were just less likely to sense when she dropped her guard and the place she was most likely to drop her guard was where she lived. In this way she had maintained enough control to keep from being detected and possibly enough to suppress the call of this stupid mark on her chest after she double checked a couple things.

And she would do everything she could to block it, Kagome had big plans for her life. Studying abroad was only the next step towards her goals, and nothing so frivolous as an unwanted relationship with an inconsiderate inu would get in her way.

At least it wouldn't, Kagome reminded herself after she paid the driver and hurried into the house, if she got this stupid mark business taken care of in time. All her dreams would be jeopardized if she didn't hurry up and block Taishou Sesshoumaru from finding her and ruining everything.

Kagome let herself in and quickly moved to scan through the book shelves on prominent display in the living room. Sango's personal collection lined all four walls, so it would have taken quite a bit of time if she hadn't known the general area of the one she was looking for. Finding the book she needed, Kagome pulled it from the shelf and headed to her room. Sango was aware that Kagome read her books, just not which ones, and the last thing Kagome needed was her roommate asking nosy questions as to why she would be interested in a book on canine youkai mating rituals.

Kagome couldn't very well tell the exterminator that she needed to refresh her memory on what a marking truly was so that she could best figure out how to block it. Sango would want to know first whose marking she wanted to block and second, how the hell Kagome intended to block it. It wasn't like a body could just brush make up over it and it would disappear. Marking took to the soul, the better to instill close relations between a couple.

One more thing Kagome wanted to zap Taishou-san for. Like hell she was going to take some stupid marking telling her how much she wanted to be close to that inconsiderate jerk.

Closing the door behind her, Kagome quickly skimmed over the table of contents looking for the shiroi inu section. Flipping to the indicated page, she swiftly assimilated the information before figuring out her plan of attack. The most she could do with her level of control was to set up some temporary interference. She couldn't block it completely without risking both her death and his from the shock of it, and despite how angry she was with him, she didn't want him dead. Better to let him live with the reality that he'd marked a female who didn't want him. Maybe he'd learn to treat people better.

She could keep him at bay by reapplying her noisy barrier every few days.

Yes, that would serve her purposes just fine. It would be draining, but after a while she'd build up some stamina and get used to it. For now, a shower was in order to wash the evidence of last night off her skin. Then she'd need to go start breakfast to circumvent any suspicions on the part of her roommate. Sango would expect Kagome to be awake and working on breakfast before the slayer crawled out of her bed, best to meet her expectations.

* * *

The stronger light of mid-morning was what woke Taishou Sesshoumaru from his sated sleep. His brain was fuzzy with the lingering affects of a pleasant night spent working off the alcohol with a nubile body at his disposal. Great prolonged sex was his cure-all for a hangover, and if ever it didn't work, he was too buzzed with lingering satisfaction to notice.

Of course, sex was his preferred remedy for just about everything that ever ailed him.

He smirked to himself before reaching out for the warm body he expected to find. He was thinking another round sounded absolutely called for just now. It was highly improbable that the female he'd ridden last night had woken before him given how sore he was. Strangely, all his grasping claws caught was air and cool, empty sheets. Sesshoumaru came awake quickly at the surprise. It was rare for a female to willingly leave his bed after he'd given them the honor of riding out his passions for one night.

Some women took to stalking him in hopes of another ride, but he never gave in. Or at least very rarely. The last thing he wanted was to mark some female simply because he'd gotten used to having her around.

No, Sesshoumaru gave them all one chance to entice him to mate. One tumble in the sheets, usually their own, then he dropped them before they could become a bad habit. It might surprise the world to know, but secretly the heir of Taishou Hiroyuki was a romantic. He didn't quite believe in love at first sight, but he certainly believed he could pick a mate instinctively from first fuck. So far it hadn't happened, but this morning was shaping up strangely.

With a quick glance about the room, Sesshoumaru realized he was in his own bed which was an oddity in itself. He generally never brought his conquests into his home to help prevent any clingy females from finding a way back inside. But apparently the female he'd fucked last night had been worthy of his personal silk sheets.

The next thing he noticed was the smudge of blood collected on those same sheets, evidence that he'd found himself a virgin. That was also a surprise as Sesshoumaru usually preferred his lovers to have a bit of experience in the event that he did mark them during their one night. He'd prefer his mate _know_ he was the best lover she'd ever have rather than force her to assume it. True he didn't always like the reality that someone else had sampled a female's delicacies before him, but Sesshoumaru figured the knowledge would insure his future mate would never think to displease him lest he deny her the benefit of his skillful pleasures.

The last thing he needed as the heir to a company the size of his father's was a fractious, needy mate who would demand more time away from running the company than Sesshoumaru was willing or able to give. His mate should feel privileged to have what he could and would give rather than demanding more.

Eventually, the inu rose from his bed, stretching his overused muscles as his eyes took in the smudges on the window. He stumbled a bit, feeling a little off, then dismissed it as lingering effects from a great night of sex. He'd apparently really enjoyed his partner despite her inexperience it seems. Sesshoumaru strode into his bathroom, uncaring of his nudity in front of the wide window. He'd taken care of any threats to his privacy long ago. Besides, there was no point in worrying about clothing himself until after he'd washed off the remnants of the previous night's activities. Normally there would be another body in that shower for him to take advantage of, but he liked his solo showers just as much.

It wasn't until he glanced into the steam fogged mirror after his shower that he noticed the glow. His eyes, even now, were glowing with a power he wasn't consciously using. Which meant that he was still forming a mark on someone.

Sesshoumaru blinked in surprise at the luminescence staring back at him from the slowly clearing mirror. Suddenly he was aware of a gnawing emptiness tugging at him as the reality began to dawn on him.

Last night he had mated. Somewhere between the bar where he'd gotten drunk and his apartment, he'd met a woman that was worthy of binding, one he was now bound to, and she wasn't here. His mate was not close by, not somewhere in his apartment, and most likely from the sense he was getting, not even in the building. This was unconscionable. How could there possibly be a female that didn't realize the honor of being marked by him, Taishou Sesshoumaru. Then, just as suddenly as he'd become aware of missing his mate, the tug on the other end of their bond abruptly...disappeared. He couldn't sense her clearly, couldn't even get a direction. He had no idea where she was in relation to himself.

Then it struck Sesshoumaru that he had no idea who his mate was. Her name, her position in life, even her species eluded his memory. This could not be good.

Frantically he bolted from his bathroom in search of her scent. He stopped in his bedroom where she'd spent the most time and inhaled deeply to weed through all the various smells trapped in his room. There was the scent of his cum. There was the scent of the detergent used on his sheets. There was the aroma of carpet cleaner, glass cleaner, wood cleaner, and the chemicals his dry cleaner used on his clothes. Weeding through it all he finally singled out an anomaly that wasn't altogether unfamiliar to him, but it wasn't one he knew well. It was the scent of someone he had probably only had passing contact with prior to this incident.

Her blood on his sheets was his strongest ally, it was his starting point. Swiftly, Sesshoumaru dressed before picking up the trail that lead out to the living room where he found the scraps that were left of her panties tucked under the end of the couch.

A flash of memory, bending a dark haired, petite beauty over the arm to find his pleasure let him know he was looking for a semi-short, brunette woman who hadn't known the touch of a male before him. The trail then lead him out to the elevator. There was only one that came all the way to his floor, so her scent was extremely prevalent inside the car when he stepped aboard. As was the faint scent of his toxins.

Sesshoumaru closed his eyes with a groan. He'd dosed the woman, seduced her chemically which meant that even before he'd laid a hand on her Sesshoumaru had intended to mark her. It also told him, she'd been more than slightly reluctant. He had never before had to resort to his courting toxins with a woman. Many hadn't even required he chat them up before falling onto his dick.

Any woman that required more effort easily fell to his skill with words, heated glances and strategic caresses. And when any of the above failed him prior to this the target in question had been dropped so he could move on to more agreeable prey. If he was bored and looking for a challenge, Sesshoumaru had been known to allow a seduction to stretch out over the course of several days.

That he was so impatient as to resort to the mist when words, glances and touch failed him belied an impatience for his mystery mate that was incredibly uncharacteristic of him. An impatience he was certain had made his mate exceptionally unhappy with him. Hell, S_esshoumaru _wasn't too happy he'd dosed her, either.

He'd always felt that dosing was an unfair advantage in the game of carnal give and take. Besides, using it made the victory of a successful seduction meaningless. It was more satisfying to overcome a cognizant, fully-aware will rather than simply taking advantage of a chemical haze.

But his preferences and her happiness aside, Sesshoumaru had mated the woman and he _would_ find her. Instinct and pride demanded it. Something about the woman had appealed to him so much he'd resorted to the mist and there was no way he was going to let something like that go. When he did find her, he would prove to her that he was more than worthy and the best possible mate she would ever have. Because she certainly couldn't find another wearing his mark.


	3. Courtesy Phone

The title of this story came to me after I'd written a number of chapters first. Sometimes it happens that way. Other times, a title his me and it fits a story closely right from the start. You don't know how appropriate papers cranes are for this story is yet. But you're getting there.

Sesshoumaru finally gets to know just what kind of problems he's bought himself by marking a woman like Kagome without her permission. It's one thing to allow a one night seduction, another entirely to be locked into a lifetime commitment to someone you only know in a peripheral way.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from the first chapter of Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on Dokuga.

**Courtesy Phone**

A few days later, Kagome rested her arms above her head to help stretch out her back after her last final exam. It had proven a bit more difficult to focus on her exams while maintaining the required concentration she needed to hold her barriers in place. And that last test had been a bit more difficult that she'd expected. Not "panic, I failed" difficult but still a bit more challenging than the midterm had taught her to expect. Then again, Toki-sensei hadn't been dumped by Taishou-san prior to midterms.

As much as Kagome hated to infer that her professor had been a bit sadistic in preparing the exams, she had a feeling a number of students in good standing were about to fail the whole class with this last exam. Not everybody was an insomniac like Kagome and could study while holding two level eight barriers.

And Kagome had to hold up two of them for the last few days.

It hadn't occurred to her until after she stepped out of her shower and encountered Sango's hissing firecat, Kirara, that simply bathing would not protect her from an inu nose. It just wasn't possible. Even if she had managed to remove absolutely every last remnant of his scent from her body, there was no way he wouldn't make a point of taking note of her personal scent. She was his marked mate, smelling like him or not, he would still be on the look out for her.

She had to face the very real possibility that they would encounter each other at some point. They went to the same school after all. It may have been a large campus and they may not have any classes left together, but there was always a chance that Taishou Sesshoumaru would think to check the campus for his missing mate. Kagome had signed into his building as a SafeRide after all.

SafeRide was a student run organization, staffed by other students for the purpose of seeing students safely back to their homes after they'd partied too hard. It wasn't too much of a leap for him to surmise that his mate would therefore have to be a student at the same university. Whether said student turned out to be one of the staff or just a fellow drunk. Taishou-san had no way of knowing and SafeRide would never give out any of the names of its staff.

Statistics were Kagome's best friends, because despite the Taishou money and the amount of political pressure her would-be mate could press on the organization, nobody would talk. Especially not when it was her they'd be giving up. Too many of her fellow staffers owed her one for taking over shifts or just generally having their back.

Kagome could have cackled with glee over it if she wasn't on a public sidewalk. Instead she just snorted, lowered her arms and continued to walk home in the warm sunlight.

Just a few more days and Kagome would be far beyond the reach of his search. If he thought she was a needle in a hay stack in Tokyo, just wait until he had to find her somewhere in the world.

That thought caused her to pause. She didn't really hate Taishou Sesshoumaru despite the tough spot he'd nearly put her in. A few days to get over it had let her cool down a bit and think. And while she still wasn't crazy enough to help him find her, she was aware of just how expensive and time-consuming a man hunt could be. The price increased exponentially when the whole effort was being kept out of the press.

Of course, she was assuming that Taishou-san had involved outsiders in his search by now.

Sango's book had said that inu were exceptionally possessive and attached to their mates once marked, which meant her inu was most likely desperate to find her by now. If nothing else, Taishou-san had probably taken the news to his father who was, Kagome suspected, the alpha of their pack until such time as Taishou Sesshoumaru either defeated him in open combat or left to form his own pack. Which could always be a pack of one, but he spent too much time around Taishou Hiroyuki and the others of his birth pack to have chosen the latter. And the papers would have most certainly delighted in the event of the former.

Either way, Kagome supposed, it would be inconsiderate of her to leave the country without letting Taishou Sesshoumaru know she wasn't around to be found any more. Just because he was an inconsiderate jerk, didn't mean she had to be the same. Her mama had raised her better.

Kagome nodded sharply to herself before entering the next shop likely to have those little pay as you go cells on sale. She picked up two of them before heading to the post office to pick up a box for one of them before heading home.

Once at the house, Kagome activated both phones, programed each number into the opposite phone before stuffing one into the box she'd picked up. After taping it shut and addressing it to Taishou-san's apartment, she returned to the post office and express mailed it, one day delivery. When he called her, Kagome would tell him and then she would discard the phone...or maybe not. She would simply have to see.

* * *

Sesshoumaru's eyes were blood shot. His efforts to find his mysterious, missing mate were proving fruitless.

The woman's scent ended at the curb outside his building. His first lead on her a dead end no more than twenty feet from the front door where his ever helpful doorman had helped her into a cab. The inu had been required to take a handful of deep calming breaths before he could think past the frustrating desolation caused by his inability to hunt down his mate quickly and on his own. Fine.

Sesshoumaru had then retreated to the lobby. His closest resource was the attendant logs, the security tapes, and the staff on duty when he and his lover arrived. Or at least, they would have been had the lady supplied an actual name to the attendant. "SafeRide" indeed. And while it told him that his lady was another student, it didn't tell him whether the female in question was a fellow passenger or a staffer. And he well knew the SafeRide group wasn't going to give him a name. Knew it without having to ask.

The security tapes had proven slightly more helpful in that he now had a full, grainy image to go off of, the sort that was frustratingly ambiguous. She was young, as if being a student hadn't already told him that. She was shorter than him, as he already knew. But her exact height was masked by the fact she was partially carrying his drunken weight. Hell, his draped body blocked nearly all the cameras from getting a clear shot of the woman from any direction so he still didn't know her species or anything else about her beyond being dark haired.

Eventually he found the tapes in which she made her exit. She was only recognizable by her damaged jeans, her tennis shoes, and the jacket previously tied around her waist, now worn zipped up tight to her chin to cover for her clothing casualties of the night.

Sesshoumaru was not a youkai who was easy on women's clothing.

In some shots, he could just make out the glow of his forming mark. The lobby camera watched her out the door where the exterior one picked her up. When Sesshoumaru questioned the doorman on duty, he'd been informed that his lady had only directed her driver to head west before she'd made it beyond the doorman's hearing.

His female was proving uncommonly clever. Clearly the female had intentionally held off giving her driver more than general directions for the express purpose of securing her escape. And her efforts had been successful.

A Taxi in this city sometimes moved hundreds of people, and were he to some how track down the exact cab that picked up a young woman from his building that morning, there was no way for him to force the driver to answer his queries about where he dropped her unless he could prove himself a member of law enforcement or next of kin. Newly mated simply wouldn't cut it. And cabs didn't bother logging the names of their passengers if they paid in cash.

Thus, he'd hit his second dead end. Which meant he had to tell his father.

Sesshoumaru had been reluctant to inform his father he'd taken a mate without the woman actually being present for the announcement.

There was more than one reason Sesshoumaru got drunk and slept around so much. Upon graduating from high school prior to starting college, his illustrious father had informed him that as soon as Sesshoumaru graduated from Tokyo University, a mating would be arranged for him.

In many things, Sesshoumaru was willing to go along with the plans of his sire, but not in this. Sesshoumaru had no real desire to mate so young, but he didn't really desire to break irrevocably from his pack. Taishou Hiroyuki had made it very clear that if Sesshoumaru didn't mate as his sire directed post graduation, he may as well assume himself without a pack. The Taishou Patriarch had delivered unto his loyal, dutiful eldest an ultimatum.

Sesshoumaru chaffed under this unreasonable treatment. He hadn't wanted to go into business, finding it boring and full of empty competition with weak fools who had an unhealthy propensity to widen about the middle while all the time seeking to increase the power of their wallets. Playing against such cretins was far too easy, but his father had needed an heir for his financial empire.

Sesshoumaru would have preferred to complete his college education abroad, someplace the Taishou name wouldn't have drawn so much unneeded attention. But his sire had desired to begin introducing the next owner to his business associates, so he went to Tokyo U instead. He hadn't even applied to any other schools. And still his father had chosen to reward Sesshoumaru's compliance and support thus.

To go against his father directly would result in the same consequences as simply refusing to mate. He would either be without a pack altogether, including the inheritance that went with it, or he would assume the responsibilities of the company immediately after violently defeating his father in combat. Neither of which appealed to him. He was not an inu who would do well completely cut off from other inu.

There was enough tactician in him to realize a more subtle approach would have to be used. Sesshoumaru simply would not allow his father to win in this instance. And the only way to win without being disowned was to mark a one night stand when he wasn't in control of himself.

Sure he could date, if he wanted. But if he turned up at his father's house with a marked woman he'd been courting, his dear sire would not have believed it was by accident.

Sesshoumaru supposed he could perhaps befriend a woman prior to sleeping with her, but that was just as risky as dating someone. Any woman he spent a significant amount of time with would shortly become the purview of his father.

He risked choosing unwisely, but he didn't worry.

He was inu. He had instinct to guide him. And he'd trust his instinct to fish him out something good and if it didn't, well at least it was his own choice he'd be lamenting and not one his father had foisted upon him.

Sesshoumaru wouldn't mind being miserable as long as he was miserable on his own terms.

His plan had apparently succeeded. He had marked his mate without his father's interference. Unfortunately, his plan had also gotten him into this situation where he was without his mate, incapable of marking another and forced to go to his father to ask for aid. And he didn't even know if she was worth it.

Well, she was certainly worth it for inu once mated needed to be close to their mates, but he wasn't sure if she was _worth it_ as a person. He didn't know enough about her to make such a judgment.

The discussion with his father hadn't been as unpleasant as first imagined. The head Taishou wasn't as furious about the announcement that he had taken a mate as Sesshoumaru had expected. In fact, the older inu had merely sighed before congratulating him. Sure sign that his well publicized womanizing ways had prepared his sire for such news. It was the news that his marked mate had left him that had brought on Hiroyuki's immense displeasure.

"She would dare declare you unworthy?" Hiroyuki snarled irately. Apparently his father was more insulted about Sesshoumaru's mate abandoning his side than he was.

"Keh, probably didn't realize what a prick he was before hand," his ornery half-breed, half-brother scoffed with disinterest. Sesshoumaru growled pointedly in response. "Please, don't act like you're the gods gift to women everywhere. A lot of girls wouldn't want you for a mate. Your habits are very public. Who would want to be mated to some guy who would likely cheat on her often?"

"This Sesshoumaru would never dishonor his mate," Sesshoumaru rumbled pointedly.

"Does she know that?" Inuyasha asked, bringing him up short. "Did you take the time to assure her of that before you slept with her?"

"Inuyasha, desist," the elder inu pinched the bridge of his nose wearily. "You should not taunt your brother over this. This is far too serious." Inuyasha shrugged off his father's reprimand with an irreverent "keh". "Now then, Sesshoumaru, what do you need?"

"I have exhausted all possible resources at my immediate disposal in attempts to locate her," Sesshoumaru answered. "She did not leave a name with the attendant other than that she was brought there by a SafeRide van when they dropped me off. She did not utter directions to her cab driver other than to drive west within hearing range of the doorman. The security videos offer images that are grainy at best. Neither of the attendants last night or this morning remembered her well enough to give me a more solid description of her person beyond that she was female, dark-haired, and determined. I was able to sense her direction briefly upon first waking, but it has since become extremely muffled and difficult to discern."

"You don't even know her name?" Inuyasha blew-up in his incredulous humor. "What did you do? Just claw her out of her clothes and drop your dick inside her pussy?" His answer was a fierce love tap that left the hanyou rubbing at his jaw on the floor.

"You are speaking of his mate Inuyasha, try not to be so crude," Hiroyuki scolded his youngest absently. "Well, we know she's likely a student at your school, and that she hasn't already been prey to your womanizing prior to this."

"Keh, that'll narrow down the field a bit, but not much," Inuyasha mumbled.

"We also know that she likely was a staffer for that organization," Hiroyuki added "as it is unlikely a fellow drunk would have thought to give that name to the attendant. We have images of this woman, granted not the best, but it is a start. I'll call my assistant and get her to contact a private detective I've had success with in the past. We'll see what that digs up. In the meantime, Sesshoumaru, you need to scout out your campus. Who knows, luck may find you and allow you to find her. And I will contact the local exterminators and see who would be helping your lady block the bond. There are very few others who would know how."

"I'll ask Miroku and Sango if they know who was on duty for SafeRide last night," Inuyasha offered. "It likely won't amount to much, but it's worth a try."

Sesshoumaru had merely nodded despite his reluctance to follow through with his part of the plan. It was likely that his female would soon leave the city after finals were completed, whether she did this to evade him or simply follow through on her original plans wouldn't matter as it wasn't blatantly unusual behavior that anyone would comment on this time of year. Without a name, once she left the city, they would have no way of finding her again. Time was running out.

As his father had suggested Sesshoumaru was better off searching around the one place he knew they had in common than closeting himself up in his apartment even if all he wanted to do was steal away to wallow in the last vestiges of her scent available in his apartment. Besides, he had final exams to take. Life doesn't just stop because the bottom fell out of his world.

"Hey, Sesshoumaru," the hanyou called to him as Sesshoumaru made his way back to his car. His first two exams were over, and the day was getting on. Already the normally crowded lot was fast emptying as students who had finished their exams for the day had already left. "Wait up!"

Despite his first inclination, the two brothers were not close after all, Sesshoumaru stopped and turned to the annoying half breed. "Inuyasha," he acknowledged woodenly. He just wasn't in the mood to perpetuate their standing animosity to its normal degree.

Inuyasha shuddered noticeably but did not fail to continue, "SafeRide's turned out to be a bit of a dead end." He shrugged apologetically, "Miroku doesn't normally work on Thursdays as a general rule since he's had that one evening class and Sango's regular schedule changed since she's been on call in place of her brother. You know he's been in the hospital since that big bust went south a ways back. And when she's not on call she's down at the hospital holding his hand in the evenings." The younger inu shook his head and returned to the pertinent information, "As far as they know, none of the regulars have suddenly stopped helping out or made plans to leave the country, though many already had such plans in place this time of the year anyway."

"This Sesshoumaru is aware," he nodded his appreciation for the somewhat useless effort Inuyasha had put forth on his behalf, unsurprised by the results. His mate could have left him because she'd already had plans to leave. He just wish he knew.

"Keh, ungrateful bastard," Inuyasha sighed and watched him leave.

Sesshoumaru drove mechanically back to his building pondering the trappings of fate and his own plan that had landed him in this predicament. It was insulting to have been left behind, it was maddening not to know why, but most of all it was disheartening to know he couldn't fix this one mistake. There was no way to take back a mark even if it wasn't communicating properly.

He parked in his space in the basement before bypassing the elevator so he could take the stairs up to the lobby. It had become a habit since she'd disappeared to stop by and see if she'd attempted to return. The attendant was given firm instructions to inform him at the first opportunity should such a thing come to pass.

Normally the attendant would glance up at him and shake her head to inform him that there was nothing to report. Today, despite the line up of guests and other tenants swamping the uniformed woman, she flagged him over. A package had arrived baring no return address.

Sesshoumaru sniffed the container carefully as he rode the crowded elevator patiently as it slowly emptied out before it reached the top floor. Determining that whatever it contained was harmless enough, he carefully shuffled it and his book bag until he unlocked his front door and let himself in. Without a second thought, Sesshoumaru dropped the bag and tore into the brown box with his claws, releasing a powerful, cleansing breath of scent that headed straight to his memory and relaxed all the tense muscles in his body. Next, he carefully extracted the small electronic device nestled inside the cardboard and paper. It was a phone.

Sesshoumaru accessed the contact menu to find one number programmed into the device that hadn't been put there by the manufacturer. With a fortifying breath, Sesshoumaru highlighted the number and hit send before bringing the phone up to his ear.

It rang twice before the call was picked up.

"Hello, Taishou-san," a calm female voice answered.

"Mate," Sesshoumaru growled suddenly relieved despite the fact she wasn't actually with him. "Have you come to your senses and chosen to return to this Sesshoumaru?"

The woman snorted, "This is merely a courtesy call. I thought I might save you and your family some time and money by telling you I'm leaving the country in the next few days."

"You would go so far to runaway?" Sesshoumaru was a bit confused by all the feelings her words invoked.

"Don't flatter yourself, Taishou-san -"

"I have been more intimate with you than any other person, mate," Sesshoumaru grumbled, her formal reference to himself irritated him greatly. "My name is Sesshoumaru."

"Physical intimacy does not necessitate familiarity, Taishou-san. You do not know me, we have no relationship," the female pointed out firmly. "You, yourself, are more than aware of this as none of your former conquests have been granted such an honor."

"You are more than any of them were," Sesshoumaru argued.

"Wrong," she rebuffed him shortly. "The only difference between them and me is that you were crazy enough to mark this stranger rather than any who went before me." She sighed, the sound rushing against his ear almost as if she were right there to blow on it. "This was not what I wanted to talk about. I am leaving the country in a few days."

"Am I so unworthy in your eyes?" he demanded. Surely she didn't know just what her leaving him meant.

"You are not what I would have chosen to be my life partner," she informed him bluntly and his mind reeled. "You are so far from what I was looking for you can't even understand how you don't fit what I want, Taishou-san. "

Sesshoumaru blinked, "How would you know?"

"If you were anywhere near what I would chose, what I would deem worthy, you would have known not to mark me because I was leaving and no stupid mark would ever hold me back," her reply was quick and pointed. "I will not give up my goals, my dreams to live in the prison you would set me in."

"How is being my mate holding you prisoner?"

"Were I to stand as your mate, I would be forced to live my life by your whims, base my pleasures and projects around your schedule, attending to events as you wish, correct?" she asked him. "How is that unlike living in a prison? I have fought too hard and accomplished too much to give it all up and live like a bird in a cage."

"I suppose you feel I should live by your schedule instead," Sesshoumaru scoffed.

"No," she refuted his sarcastic observation. "The fact that you can't see a relationship in any other way than one being in control of the other, shows me that we would never be compatible. I don't want to rule over anybody's life and I refuse to let somebody else rule mine, Taishou-san."

His displeased growl went ignored. "What would you want in a mate that you think this Sesshoumaru is incapable of?"

"Why, so you can pretend to fulfill my requirements and con me into giving you a shot?" she laughed in amusement. "Weren't you listening? Even if you fulfilled my wishes, I would still be leaving the country at the appointed time. I don't _need_ a life partner right now, and thanks to you, I'll never have the option of finding one to fit my pleasure." She chuckled mirthlessly. "It would have been nice to develop a real relationship."

"We have a relationship, mate."

"We have a youkai too impatient to use his phallus to wait to find out who he's using it on," she snapped. "You don't even know my name. One has to wonder how many of the others you failed to do the same courtesy. How many others have you dosed to get your way?"

"Just you," Sesshoumaru admitted guiltily.

"Well, aren't I just special," she sniffed. "I tire of this pointless conversation. I have more packing to do before I go spend the last of my time with my family before my flight. You won't find me, stop wasting your money and your time. That was all I wanted to say, because, despite your inconsiderate behavior, my mother taught me to always be courteous."

"Wait," Sesshoumaru demanded.

"Yes, Taishou-san," she answered wearily.

"What is your name?"

"You can't honestly be asking me to help you track me down, I'm not that stupid," she rebuffed his request. "As it is I'll most likely toss this phone after we're done here. You're welcome to track it, it's brand new, prepaid and bought with cash. And the information I provided when activating both phones leads back to you. Feel free to keep and use yours. The bill will be sent to you as you use it."

"Wait!" Sesshoumaru panicked. If she got rid of her phone, he lost his only way to contact his mate.

"What is it now, Taishou-san?" she sighed.

"Don't get rid of the phone," He all but begged.

"Why so you can track me with it?" she scoffed.

"Please don't get rid of the phone," he really did beg, on his knees in his empty apartment.

He heard her sigh again and hoped it meant she was relenting. "Fine, I'll keep it, but the moment you attempt to use it to find me I'll vanish and leave it behind. And you're paying for it. The bill will be sent to you, it will be expensive as foreign rates can get ridiculously high, that's _if_ it even works where I'm going."

"If it doesn't, get a new one and send the bill to this Sesshoumaru," he agreed.

"Taishou-san, don't make me regret this," she warned him before hanging up.


	4. Hanging On

This tale is probably going to be my most widely traveled. But not for a while. No first we've got to disabuse Sesshoumaru of a few stereotypical notions concerning women and what they want from life. It's not completely his fault that he relies on those prolific presuppositions and mis-generalizations made about females in general. He's not very social. Never spent time with a woman who wasn't a teacher or a one-night stand (barring stalkers of course). Experience hasn't been able to teach him better yet. Not until Kagome, raging independent, goal-oriented creature that she is! He'll learn.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from the first chapter of Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on Dokuga.

**Hanging On**

Sesshoumaru woke up abruptly, his body aching and his breath coming fast and shallow, his heart rapidly pounding a hectic rhythm in his chest.

With a deep, steadying breath, he blinked the sleep and dream fragments from his weary, amber eyes before sitting up and running a deadly claw through his silver hair. Slipping from the sheets, he raised his fatigued body from the bed and wandered into the bathroom to splash some cool water over his face.

The dream that had awoken him wasn't really a surprise.

Prior to marking his mate, Sesshoumaru had developed a regular schedule of sexual encounters where, while the partners were never the same, the result was. In essence, he'd gotten used to a steady diet of carnal activity.

Now that he'd mated and was currently refusing to sleep with anyone but his mate, Sesshoumaru was suffering from withdrawals.

Oh the absurdity of it all.

Sesshoumaru stared at his dripping reflection in the dim light that was spilling in through the picture window that still held the smudges of her skin. He had always scoffed at the idea that anyone could be addicted to sex enough to suffer from going suddenly cold turkey. But there he was.

His nights since being left by the woman he still didn't have a name for had been disturbed by what amounted to little more than wet dreams. Or rather, _almost_ wet dreams. His body forced itself awake before he could achieve physical release and he was beginning to wonder whether the indignity of climaxing in his sleep was worse than trying to find a way to orgasm after he'd woken up.

Because he'd yet to find a way to achieve orgasm after regaining consciousness.

Sesshoumaru had been afforded a great deal of time to think about it since he never regained a state of slumber once he awoke. It was his thought that the reason he couldn't achieve his release either in the dream or after waking was because she wasn't there. Because she was somewhere beyond his reach and getting further away.

With a sigh, he patted his face dry, debating the efficacy of a cold shower, before dismissing the notion and returning to sit on his bed with a tired breath.

Sesshoumaru had never pondered what would happen to him if he chose wrongly when he marked a mate. Certainly he'd been prepared to deal with a spoiled, demanding female. He'd anticipated arguing and anger, frustration and general upset. He'd almost been certain there would have been a period of rough relations between him and the female chosen as mate as they learned to deal with each other.

He had never once imagined he would be abandoned. But he should have when he'd recently gotten pickier, changing the type of targets he pursued. He'd even seduced one of his professors, and that had never been his type before.

Sesshoumaru had thought he was simply eager for more challenging prey. He should have known it meant something more than that. And his mate had proven to be more along the intellectual type he'd pursued in recent months than the usual fodder of years previous.

He could only surmise that he'd sensed her or encountered her in passing in the last few months and instinctively directed his efforts to women that were of a similar type.

All he had were suspicions, but Sesshoumaru was beginning to think she'd been in at least one of his classes this last semester.

Suspicions and retrospect certainly didn't help his current predicament.

What he wanted was to track down his mate, strip her bare, and get reacquainted with her body. But that wasn't an option as the female in question wanted little to nothing to do with him. He had negligible doubt that part of her reasons for leaving him was because she was aware that he had done hardly anything but use women to sate his pleasures.

It wouldn't have mattered to him before this, except his mate was a woman too. Something he had stupidly failed to take into account when he'd gone about his plan to take the decision of his mating from his sire.

He'd always assumed that so long as she pleased him and he pleased her on that first night the rest would work itself out.

Of course, there was always the possibility he hadn't pleased her.

The very thought of it had him reaching for the phone he'd received the day before and pushing the send button.

"What is it Taishou-san?" Her voice seemed weary and slightly annoyed.

It was only then that it occurred to Sesshoumaru to consider the fact his room was flooded with moon and starlight rather than sun and the glowing numbers of the clock on his nightstand indicated an ungodly hour of early morn. If he was trying to mend his bridges and persuade his mate to actually return to him and _be_ his mate, waking her at the crack of dawn was not the way to go about it. "I should have made note of the time," he sighed unable to regret the call in any case. "Did I wake you?"

"Lucky for you, Taishou-san, I'm an insomniac," she answered absently. "When I do achieve the blissful somnolent state, I make very certain nothing electronic will interrupt what little rest I can manage to acquire. I do not sleep long as is, no need to shorten it needlessly."

"Why do you not sleep?"

"Unexplained mystery," She replied dismissively. "Are you well Taishou-san?"

"I-" Sesshoumaru began then thought better of it.

"Yes, Taishou-san?" the voice of his mate coaxed him from the other end of the line.

"My name is Sesshoumaru," he grit out slightly more rough than he'd intended, but it irritated him she refused to address him more familiarly. She was his marked mate.

"I am aware of your name, Taishou-san," she chuckled. "I have read a newspaper or two in the past. Just as you should also be aware of my reasons for continuing to call you the way any other stranger would."

"But I have given you leave to speak otherwise," Sesshoumaru all but whined.

"Maybe so Taishou-san, but it is up to me to choose to do so at my discretion." She sounded like she was smirking, "And I choose not to."

His mate was turning out to be a taciturn thing, though her calm was beginning to grate. She made no indication that she was angry beyond mild annoyance. And though she was clearly indignant over his marking her without prior consent, she'd not nagged at him about it beyond merely informing him that she did not appreciate his behavior. She treated him impersonally because she felt he was a stranger to her in as much as she was to him.

"Did I not please you?" the question came unbidden. He wanted to know so badly.

"I wouldn't know," she replied briefly.

"How could you not know?" he was incredulous. "It was your body, you were there."

"Your toxins made it quite impossible to know if I truly enjoyed one thing or another by manipulating my brain chemistry to interpret all stimulus as pleasure," she returned. "Your true prowess and capability to please me as a lover were masked by my unwilling intoxication. So I repeat, I wouldn't know. How could I know after you'd dosed me so many times?"

"I-" Sesshoumaru winced, though she couldn't see it. "I dosed you more than once?" He hadn't been aware of that. He could have damaged her irreparably. No wonder she believed him unfit and unworthy.

"So far I have recovered memories of at least three separate instances in our hours together filled with the burn of your mist," she informed him further. "I am fairly certain these were not all. If given the chance, you will find I don't appreciate being disallowed to experience things for myself."

Briefly he heard the muffled voice of another woman on her end before his mate responded into the phone. "I'm fine mama, it's just a drunken phone call from one of my classmates." The background woman said something else he didn't bother to hear, "No, he doesn't need a ride mama, he's already home. He's just too drunk to realize he should be sleeping. I imagine he'll drop off soon, until then I want to talk to him to make sure he doesn't try to go somewhere unnecessary."

The woman made some last parting remarks and his mate laughed good-naturedly before wishing her mother a restful, sweet sleep. Her mirth was delightful in his ear and Sesshoumaru realized it was the first time he'd heard her tinkling joy. It was also his first exposure to the warmth of her affection, even if it was directed at someone else.

"I am not drunk," Sesshoumaru petulantly expressed his mild jealousy. He wanted that affection for himself, that joy to be because of him. Unfortunately, he hadn't quite received her good opinion yet. But it was clear she disapproved of his drinking so he could clear that up. "You did not tell your mother of your marking, you did not tell her about me?" It hurt a bit that she was keeping him secret, though it did not surprise him.

She scoffed at him. "Why would I tell my mother I had sex with an ass who didn't have the decency to ask me before marking me? Are you sure you aren't drunk?" she snorted. And he had to concede she had the right to speak so. What she knew of him certainly didn't speak well for his planning or thinking abilities. "Besides, silence keeps her out of trouble, and makes my secrets easier to keep. I haven't told anyone so no one can get into trouble with the Taishou group for not coughing up the information." So true. She was, as he'd already surmised, far too intelligent to stupidly risk discovery. And apparently protective enough of her family to offer them this shield of ignorance. "As far as mama knows, you're just a drunk classmate, not even a friend. It is safer for her. And about all the effect you will have on my life." Something rustled on her end of the phone. "No need to worry her needlessly over nothing."

"I am not nothing," Sesshoumaru growled. "I am your mate."

"And I maintain a mate should know something about a person before mating them," she rebuffed him. "You're just a man, like any other, who thinks with nothing but his penis." Amazingly, she didn't sound bitter or really anything. There were no obvious emotional overtones in her voice. She just stated it like it was a commonly known fact.

"How is it you have come to have such a low opinion of me?" Sesshoumaru asked, his sorrow beginning to stain his speech. He couldn't help it. He was inu and his marked mate wanted nothing to do with him.

"You mean besides the fact that you marked me without my permission?" She inquired evenly. "Perhaps it has to do with the fall out I've seen others suffer from your treatment. They were mere things to you, not people. Many of them I knew personally, a few more I didn't, but respected regardless of their many varied responses to your treatment. I would be surprised if you knew or cared how any of them dealt with your abuse."

"I never abused anyone - "

"That is only what you perceive," she cut him off gently. "Tears that are shed in pain should never be scoffed at, whether you care about the person who sheds them or not."

"Did you cry?" he wanted to know, had he caused his mate pain.

"No," she answered. "we were not involved on a personal level, and while I was not interested in becoming physically intimate with you at the time, it has not hurt that I was your sexual liaison that night. A girl could do worse, and it certainly hasn't killed me. Perhaps later I will develop some psychosis or another as a result of it, but so long as it doesn't interfere with my goals, I care not. I, however, am not the only person you have wronged. You have hurt a lot of people in your recklessness and failed to show any consideration for those who went before me. And they were real, worthwhile people deserving of respect and compassion whether you marked them or not."

"Life and interpersonal relations are messy, mate," he replied. "Sometimes people get hurt."

"Indeed," she agreed, "But that is merely an excuse for hurting the number of people you have. A rationalization that helps you sleep at night. The truth is the swath of people you've cut through is far too wide to be dismissed."

"I had a reason," Sesshoumaru argued. Self-preservation was a reason.

"What reason?" she asked patiently, willing to hear him out before passing judgment.

"My father was planning to mate me off after I graduate," he began. "He was going to disown me if I refused and exile me from the pack. But I didn't want to mate at his direction. Mating is too serious, too permanent to leave up to an outsider." Sesshoumaru shifted uncomfortably, he'd never been one to speak of pack issues with anyone outside his intimate pack. Hell, he didn't usually speak of them within his pack. "I couldn't go against him directly, I would lose my pack, my family. I couldn't just mate to spite him."

"So you cultivated a reputation and habit of womanizing and drunken abandon to create the opportunity for you to mate a woman of your own choice 'on accident'," she finished for him. "In order to spite your alpha and take the decision from him you set yourself up for heartache and in so doing broke more than your fair share of hearts as a result."

"I suppose you would see it that way," he agreed weakly, seeing her point, though he was unwilling to admit it. It would seem that Sesshoumaru had mated his conscience.

"Are you pleased with your success?" she asked blankly

"I'd be more pleased if you were here with me," he grumbled.

"Why?" she scoffed. "It's not like you can find genuine comfort in me, you don't know me. I'm not familiar enough to offer that kind of respite. My sterling conversation only sparkles because you are currently alone and bored. Why would my presence increase your satisfaction in your victory over your alpha?"

"Because you are my mate," Sesshoumaru was beginning to feel like a broken record.

"Why did you call me, Taishou-san?" she sighed wearily and he could swear he almost felt the air brush past his pointed, sensitive ear.

"I had a dream," Sesshoumaru responded honestly. The weary inu impulsively vowed to always be honest with his mate after this. She thought badly of him because he had hurt a lot of people, because he had failed to consider her as a person before marking her.

"What kind of dream?" she asked warily.

"An erotic dream, from which I was woken most abruptly," he replied. "As I have continued to be since your abandonment."

"Are you trying to say it is my fault you were awakened before the completion of your wet dream?" she trilled with amusement. "And I couldn't abandon you if I wasn't responsible for you in the first place, especially when you don't even know my name to rely on me prior to this alleged abandonment."

"It is your fault," Sesshoumaru insisted. "The dreams all feature you and your desertion of your mate has seen to it that you are not here to fix the problem."

Her response was a disbelieving snort, "I doubt your lustful fantasies truly feature me as the star since you don't even know who I am. And I don't really have to be present for you to see to yourself. You are quite welcome to find another lover as I doubt you will see me for the indefinite future."

"I will not dishonor you," Sesshoumaru snarled fiercely. He couldn't believe she would even suggest he find relief from another female.

"Oh please, your own family history is proof that inu are not strictly monogamous," she scoffed. "And all the material I have read about inu youkai is very clear about the promiscuity of the males. Besides, it is not as if we are in an actual relationship for you to betray."

Sesshoumaru growled angrily but couldn't say anything against her statement. It was true that Hiroyuki did not believe in fidelity to one woman for Sesshoumaru's own mother was not his alpha's mate when he was born. Izayoi, Inuyasha's mother, was his sire's mate, and had been at the time of Sesshoumaru's conception and subsequent birth. The papers had made a great point of plastering it across the newsstands of the world both when he was born and when his brother had entered the world as well. There was nothing quite like being six years old and seeing the scandal of your own birth discussed publicly on TV and on the playground of his school.

Knowing that the only reason his mother had been chosen to birth the Taishou heir was because Izayoi had proven all but incapable of carrying a babe borne of his father's seed to term prior to Inuyasha's successful birth wasn't the sort of thing to promote familial warmth. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. After high school Sesshoumaru had refused to see either female and may well have done the same to his own father if he thought it wouldn't have resulted in a permanent breach with his father's pack.

He wasn't ready to be on his own. Sesshoumaru had entertained the thought that maybe, if he obtained a mate he could tolerate it, he would be strong enough to start his own pack far away from the power of his father. "I will not seek another, mate, so do not suggest it."

It was time to change the subject. He wasn't ready to let the call end and despite her contrariness, he enjoyed her sharp but gentle tongue. "You live with your mother?" Her family was a fairly safe topic, besides which, it was important information to establish. If his mate had no residence of her own she wouldn't show up on any bills and such. This could prove yet another road block in hunting her down before her escape from the country.

She snorted, "Not usually. I did tell you I would spend my last days in the country with my family, or were you not paying attention?"

"So you did," Sesshoumaru sighed. "What of the rest of this family you will be spending time with? Who are they?"

"Well there's my younger brother who's not yet out of high school, and my mildly crazy grandfather," she answered him warmly, her affection for each shining through to caress his pointed ear. "Both of which are deeply asleep at the moment. And there's mama. Hopefully she's back to sleep by now."

"Did my call wake her?" Sesshoumaru inquired worried that he had disturbed the sleep of someone very important to the female he had tenuous connection with.

"I doubt it," his mate replied mildly. "She got into the habit of checking on me in the middle of the night when I was little. Her internal clock is a bit unusual because of my long standing insomnia."

"That probably comes in handy when you need to study," Sesshoumaru observed.

"Not really," she disagreed. "I generally run out of things to study very quickly. Then I end up reading just about anything I can get my hands on. I had one roommate who had an extensive collection of Greek and roman mythology. And another roommate who was an exterminator. Reading her library has proven exceptionally handy recently."

Sesshoumaru bit back a frustrated expletive. Apparently checking who amongst the slayers had helped his mate interfere with the mark was going to prove another dead end.

"Did I just throw up another road block?" she could have made that sound cheeky, but it wasn't. "True the Exterminators might seem a good place to start when tracking me down, I suppose. But you know the youkai behavioral manuals aren't exactly restricted to members of that profession. In fact, I have a friend who managed to buy a rather ancient set of youkai encyclopedia volumes on-line a little while back."

This time he really did curse. Her ability to point out the flaws in their search strategies without being snide about it was almost as irritating as it would've been if she was.

She sighed, "Face it, Taishou-san, you won't find me if I don't want to be found."

"And you do not wish to be found," Sesshoumaru sighed.

"Not at this time no," She agreed. "I still have a lot to do."

"What could you not have accomplished in Tokyo?" Sesshoumaru demanded shortly. There was very little that couldn't be found in a city of such resources.

"My goals, obviously," she had to be smirking at his abrupt speech. "Not every girl wants to be locked away in an ivory tower with nothing to show for her life beyond the male that laid claim to her. And I want that even less when the male in question didn't actually claim me because he wanted me personally."

"I want you," Sesshoumaru insisted.

"You don't know me enough _to_ want me as a person, Taishou-san," she retorted softly. "All you know of me is that I left and you apparently liked the use of my body very much."

"There are instincts," He began before she cut him off.

"Which are little more than subconscious reactions to biological stimuli," she declared distantly. "Somehow, your subconscious assessed the biological signals produced by my body and reacted to them accordingly. Perhaps the scent of my perspiration informed you my immunity type was complimentary to yours and would therefore offer your offspring superior ability to fight off disease. Maybe the shape of my hips triggered a response in your brain that I was built satisfactorily to carry your young. All of which are again not indications that you wanted me personally but rather found a female who displayed the optimum physical traits your genetic disposition called for in a mate." Her tone was so clinical and detached it was irritating, even if it was entirely accurate. Instinct did not look to personality, it looked to procreate successfully. "I repeat, you don't know me as a person, you know my body, which is merely the outer shell and carrying case for all the more important aspects of my character. In the same way that you are more than your silver hair, golden eyes, and future inheritance, I am more than a great pair of hips and genetic material for your progeny. Progeny, I might add, I have no intention of baring anytime soon."

"You refuse to carry my pups?"

"It would be fairly difficult for you to sire those pups when I won't let you near me," she pointed out. "Besides, I've a long difficult road ahead of me without the complication of carrying, birthing, and nursing whatever you and I managed to conceive."

"You would not be alone," Sesshoumaru insisted.

"You plan to do the birthing then, Taishou-san?" her voice was clearly amused. "Because that's the only way I can keep on track with my goals."

"Impossible woman," Sesshoumaru scoffed, amused in spite of himself. She was right he supposed. Even he knew birthing a pup was no small thing. But he had realized it wasn't that she objected to carrying his pups but rather to doing so now. She'd told him more than once in their two conversations that she had goals, goals that she wouldn't let anything interfere with. He should have realized that would have included pups when she pointedly insisted _he_ wasn't allowed to come between her and the achievements she sought to obtain.

"I'm glad we understand each other," she replied gently. "Perhaps next time you want to blame your wet dreams on me you'll remember that."

"I still want you," Sesshoumaru insisted with a smirk she couldn't see.

"Now who's the impossible one," she scoffed before hanging up quietly.

This call had been about as productive as the last one, but somehow he felt warm, satisfied as though he'd spent a night wrapped in the limbs of a woman.

Sesshoumaru had never fully appreciated the thrust and parry of an intelligent debate before, but with her it gave him a thrill that had been lacking in his conquests as of late. His body still throbbed with the want of her, but he found it didn't bother him as much now that he'd learned something of her. Nothing truly helpful in his efforts to find her, but for once he didn't seem to mind.

His mate was still far beyond his reach. She still intended to move farther away from him as well, but in a way, tonight he'd become a bit closer to her and that mattered more.

He still didn't know her name, but he knew she read a lot. He knew she loved and was protective of her family and he knew she was uncompromising of her own worth. And that, it would seem, meant more than their one night of physical intimacy.


	5. Calling Out

It's Kagome's turn to call Sesshoumaru in the small hours of the morning, though he may not enjoy the conversation as much as he hoped. It certainly isn't likely that she's calling to relent on her stance against their mating. And she definitely isn't calling about unsatisfactory wet dreams of her own...heehee.

If you're confused about Kagome's life goals, you should be, Sesshoumaru is. Kagome hasn't shared any of it yet. They are very personal and Sesshoumaru isn't that close yet. She doesn't know him very well yet, and he hasn't expressed a sincere desire to get to know her either. Sesshoumaru's demands to know about her stem from instinct and instinct only cares about the physical.

To Reiterate (which isn't a redundant word at all) the pacing on this piece will be **slow**. It will go many varied places. Both Sesshoumaru and Kagome will grow before we reach something like an ending to this tale.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from the first chapter of Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Calling Out**

Kagome strolled cheerfully down the bustling, foreign street. Though foreign on her part, may not be the right term considering the fact that she was the alien in this country.

It had taken her about a week to get over the jet lag, then another to figure out the time difference to prevent from waking up her grandfather and brother when calling home to check in. Her mother might be up all night, but neither of the others were and they certainly wouldn't appreciate the interruption of their pleasant dreams. Not that they didn't lie about it the two times she had mistakenly called the Higurashi household in the wee small hours of morning since her big move.

It was just one more thing to have to think about on top of all the other things she was having to get used to. Tokyo may have been a world class city, but it was a different urban beast than the city her new school called home. The languages spoken on the street didn't have the same inflections as they did back home. Back home, there were foreigners from a number of different nations at all times, Tokyo being a big center of business and tourism, and though each one added a certain tone to the overall hum of the city, the predominant language was Japanese. The notes struck here were different, and they added emphasis on the wrong syllables, a distinction that effected general pronunciation in ways difficult to discern from her textbooks prior to now. Even so, she was managing to get by just fine.

Her homework would prove the more challenging for the language barrier, but that was nothing she hadn't already accounted for in the initial decision to go to school here. It was just a more intense change than she'd anticipated.

She'd known the "western" dishes served in Tokyo weren't exactly a match for the same concoctions made on their native shores, but Kagome had never realized just how different they would be. Every restaurant she passed on her way to and from the school funded apartment she lived in emitted strange scents full of previously unencountered spice combinations. The spaghetti here just wasn't the same as it was back in Tokyo and stew simply didn't have the same connotations as a similarly prepared dish back home. A hot pot meal here simmered for hours with basil and other spices whereas back home, a hot pot was cooked right on the table at the time of the meal. And she was told the restaurants around here didn't really do most of their menu adequate justice if she wanted the adventure of "authentic" ethnic foods. Her new roommate insisted on cultural exchanges in their meals. He tended to lean towards the American dishes, while his boyfriend prepared time honored french cuisine as learned from the women of his family. Today was to be Kagome's turn, which brought her to another facet of her new city that had proven a surprise.

It was really difficult to find some of the standard ingredients for most of her favorite dishes.

She wanted to make oden, but finding decent konnyaku, daikon radish, atsuage, and ganmodoki had proven fairly difficult. And the soy sauce here just wasn't like it was in Japan. Her options were to either alter her plans for tonight and wait a while longer until she found a decent supplier and a more appropriate season or to make do with what she could find and call her mom for ideas. Oden was generally a cold weather dish, eaten in winter or fall and it was summer now. At least, summer for here. Kagome wasn't sure how she would survive the coming winter if the balmy temperatures she was slowly getting used to were normal for what passed as summer around here.

She was going to have to figure out a way to procure more warm clothing long before the seasons were supposed to change. Much as she had anticipated a colder climate, she hadn't quite expected to be this cool during the summer. Experiencing something and knowing something had never been so blatantly two different things.

Kagome absently shrugged her shoulders, what could she do about it now. She certainly wasn't going to throw her hands up and run on home, giving up her dream and the most viable chance of achieving it because things were a little different from what she expected.

She was determined. Besides, there really wasn't anything for her back home. She could live at the shrine with her family, but she really wasn't cut out to perform fake rites at holidays and over remains when she was fully capable of doing it for real, with all the power of a real miko at hand. Temptation would eventually be given in to and she would be exposed. Kagome then saw her future as a series of near escapes as a multitude of would-be youkai lovers hunted her down for the thrill of sampling a miko carnally. That is, if Taishou-san didn't get to her first and lock her up in an ivory tower. So if she gave up now, her future was a long chase or an even longer imprisonment.

Definitely not for her.

Kagome passed by an electronics store and was reminded suddenly of Taishou-san and the phone he'd begged her to keep. Which was fine, she supposed, except that it didn't work on this continent. She had finally gotten around to replacing it with a more local phone, but had yet to actually call him. Part of the delay was due to her ever shaky grasp of time zones, the rest was a result of how quickly time had slipped by her in the three weeks since she'd arrived.

The silence probably seemed like torture to him, which made her feel guilty. She hadn't meant to torture him. Now would be a good time to call him, she thought to herself as she lifted a basket from the stack next to the door she'd just walked through ready to tackle the long, packed aisles in search of culinary gold, she certainly didn't need all of her concentration to navigate a grocery store.

Carefully, she typed in the number for his half of the pair of phones she'd bought almost a month ago. Then, while it rang she pulled out her nifty little blue tooth attachment and put it on before turning it on.

She was slightly surprised the phone was allowed to ring so many times before the call connected, only to be followed by the sound of thumping and fumbling. Then Taishou-san's slurred voice sounded in her ear, "Mate?"

Kagome glanced at her watch then and realized it was four in the morning in Tokyo, "Sorry, Taishou-san, I didn't mean to wake you. I'm still getting used to the time difference. I'll try calling again later," she added with a sigh. She would just have to remember to do it.

"No!" the inu youkai on the other end all but yelped. Though she couldn't be certain if his hasty protest and the accompanying sound were born of actual desperation to keep her on the line or as a result of the knocking around she could hear in the background on his end. For all she knew, he stubbed his toe.

"Taishou-san, are you all right?" she asked for clarification.

"Don't hang up," he answered a bit more sedately. "I tried to call you."

"I imagined you had attempted to. You should receive my old phone in the mail shortly. It didn't work here and I had to get a new one," Kagome explained gently. "It took some doing to find a good one while trying to settle in."

"Have you contacted your family?" he inquired quietly.

"Of course," Kagome replied absently as she strove to navigate around a woman, her cart, and the three children clouded around it. "I use calling cards for them though."

"But you did not bother to contact me until now," she couldn't decide if he sounded more hurt or angry.

"Taishou-san, I might remind you I am not required to contact you at all. I contacted my mother the minute I reached a phone after my plane landed because she has no way of knowing if I am still alive, you do." Kagome pointed out. Despite the interference Kagome was putting up in regards to the mark and its subsequent bond with the youkai, he should still be able to feel it was in place and active even if he could feel nothing else from it.

"Mate..." he growled on a sigh.

"Are you always this grumpy when waken up in the small hours of the morning?" Kagome cut him off. Obviously he had no right to scold her about anything. His track record was full of impulsive decisions. Someone so reckless and inconsiderate didn't have a leg to stand on when it came to scolding her about anything she did. "If so, I will hang up and allow you to get some more sleep."

"No! For sanity's sake woman, the call is in place, leave it be!"

Kagome rolled her eyes, "I do not plan to be on the phone for the rest of the day, Taishou-san."

"I do not require that you stay on the phone that long, mate," Taishou-san loosed a weary sigh. "I do, however wish to speak with you for more than a handful of minutes."

"Hmm," Kagome hummed without inflection. She neither cared about his reasoning nor questioned his motives. He was inu, that told her enough. Besides, she was preoccupied with trying to get past the same woman again. She needed to find either a bigger market, or a better time for her shopping. Her roommate thought she was batty for going shopping for food everyday. But then, he also thought she needed a car for the chore as well.

"Where are you, mate?" she assumed he knew that she wouldn't supply her country, or even the city she was in, so she didn't bother to scold him for the question.

"Shopping for food," she murmured. "My roommate insists that we take turns cooking food from home every week. The first week he made something he insisted his grandma brought over from the old country before the family emigrated. Last week his boyfriend made something his French grandmere used to fix him when he was a boy. So this week is my turn."

"You live with a male?" he growled his jealousy down the line.

"I live with a homosexual male who is in a serious relationship with another of the same sexual persuasion," she corrected him.

"He is still male," the gruff voice continued to growl, even when he wasn't speaking words.

"Actually, he's more like a girl than I am sometimes," she added with amusement. "You should see how packed his closet is. I've never seen so many clothes in one place that weren't for sale before. And shoes! You'd think he had a few extra pairs of feet with how many different shoes he has!"

"The point, mate, was that he was male. And regardless of his sexual orientation and penchant for fashion, he is still equipped with the required genitalia to label him male and a threat to this one's claim," the inu youkai growled a bit louder, his mood darkening the more she insisted on talking about him.

"Good grief, Taishou-san. You're worse than my mother. She doesn't have a problem with it. She actually thinks Brett-san is the other daughter she never birthed. I think she likes him better than me."

"She is aware this 'Brett-san' is male," Sesshoumaru still hadn't lost the growl but he was beginning to regain a small amount of his self control as well as some grasp of his higher reasoning ability. Kagome was telling him that his opinion in this didn't matter. He wasn't family as far as she was concerned. He wasn't even a close friend, and if he persisted in opposing this, she would hang up.

"The way he put it was that he was a brain girl." Kagome responded as she reached out to study the back of a package of rice. Maybe she should just make a traditional style breakfast instead of the oden. Ingredients for that would be easier to find, provided she could find some decent fish. "He might have just been saying that to make my mom laugh though. He gets all protective and stuff, like some of my guy friends back home when I have to walk home at night. He's helping me get a job at the bar he works at. I'd be a bartender, and only scheduled to work at the same time he does."

"A bartender?"

"It's a coffee bar," Kagome clarified for him. "Mostly, anyway. They serve any combination of coffee, chocolate, and alcohol. I personally think the combination of any two of those is extremely unhealthy, but apparently it's a very popular hang out among the local students. Which kind of explains a lot if you think about it."

"A bartender, mate. After signing into my building as "SafeRide" I find it difficult to believe you would hire on as a dealer of alcohol," he commented wryly.

Kagome had to grin at the irony of it too, "Yep, I've become a complete and utter wild woman since I abandoned you. I drink soft drinks with a straw and eat Breakfast cereals packed with sugar."

"Hnn," she imagined she could hear him smirk through the phone.

"Maybe I'll start painting my toe nails outrageous colors and wear huge clip on earrings," she added with a smirk of her own. "I may even let my roommate experiment with make up on my face."

"Hnn, so long as it washes off eventually," the inu replied.

"Most make up does," Kagome pointed out. "Unless you go in for the tattoo make up, then you're pretty much stuck with the same look forever," she added perversely.

"I would advise against any tattoos," Taishou-san counseled. "You will out live the vibrancy of any pigment unless you reapply it often."

"Well, there's always henna tattoos," Kagome shrugged as she eyed the fish selections. None of it looked or smelled fresh enough for her preference. "I miss mama's cooking," she grumbled quietly.

"Is the food there that bad?" Taishou-san asked her directly.

"Hmm," Kagome hummed, not realizing she'd voiced the pseudo-complaint out loud. "It's different. I'm just supposed to make something Japanese for dinner tonight and I can't find any of the stuff I need. I wanted to make Oden. I realize it's the wrong season, but it's easy and offers more than just Japanese flavor, but an actual experience. But I can't find any of the traditional ingredients. Then I thought I'd make a traditional breakfast, but the fish here is rather limited."

"I'd offer you advice, but being inu, my idea of a meal consists mostly of meat," he declared.

"That's it!" Why hadn't she thought of it before? It was simple, completely Japanese and there wasn't a thing in it distinctly ethnic beyond the sauce which she could make if she couldn't find one decent enough for her taste.

"What?"

"I'll make Sukiyaki," she answered as she headed for the beef. "I may have to adjust the vegetables a bit, but I did see the noodles back a few aisles. I passed them over because I was looking for something else." That, and she questioned the quality of the taste, but a good sauce could cover everything.

"I see." His growling had finally stopped, for which Kagome was glad. She didn't exactly enjoy having somebody growl in her ear for no reason. Or even if he had a reason. It was annoying either way. "So, is this the best time to contact you?"

"Not really," she shook her head at the butcher's offer before instructing him to slice the tender slab of beef in thin slices. "Next week I start a class that runs past this hour. Your best bet would be to call me about mid afternoon your time, which would catch me in the small hours where nobody else is awake, but I understand you likely have things to do at that time of the day. I have Saturday and Sundays off, unless I work, which sounds like I will most evenings. As I said, afternoons or early evenings would be your best bet to catch me outside of class and work."

"I will see if I can arrange to have that time off," Taishou-san declared clearly. "I have been allotted time to continue my studies so I am taking advantage of it. Provided of course, I still attend to my father's maneuvering whims at the company."

"You don't sound very enthusiastic about it," Kagome observed. "Aren't you supposed to inherit that someday?"

"With much money, comes great intrigue," Taishou-san chuckled mirthlessly. "Have I tarnished the dream of wealth and easy life?"

"Pssh," Kagome scoffed. "Don't make it sound like I slept with you for your money. It cheapens me and you."

"I suppose it does," he sighed.

"If you don't look forward to taking over the reins, why are you studying to do just that?"

"If one maintains a place other than alpha in a pack, one must obey the whims of the alpha of that pack," the inu youkai explained.

"I'm sorry, but that makes no real sense," Kagome declared. "I am not the head of my family. My grandfather is, and if I were to follow his whims, I would be back in Japan eking out a living as a shrine maiden in a forgotten shrine and reciting stories of things that never happened. Instead, I am here, following my dream with the blessing of all my family, including my erstwhile grandfather. They love me and I love them. I have not been ejected from the bosom of my family because they wish for me to be happy and able to take care of myself."

"Your 'alpha' as you call your father cannot truly desire to drive you to early insanity in a position you neither desire nor enjoy." Kagome walked to the produce department to look over the vegetable candidates. "What did he do when you approached him about mating despite knowing his intentions to mate you off? Did he cut you off? Throw a fit? Disinherit you?"

"You don't know what you speak of."

"Or did he accept it? Take offense in your stead that I left?" she ignored him. "See the last is what a supportive father would do. The first is something a controlling tyrant would do instead."

"He is both, mate," Taishou-san sighed wearily. "If this Sesshoumaru had not first established a certain reputation, Father would have seen my mating as a direct act of rebellion and expelled me from his pack. This is a fact. That he did not is proof that this Sesshoumaru successfully created the illusion that it was an accident rather than premeditated. That you immediately left probably helped to support that image."

"And dosing me. Does that help or hinder you one upping your old man?" she asked evenly.

"Actually, he is unaware of that detail," he answered. "I would have preferred the success of seducing you without the aid of such."

"You would have been unsuccessful without it," Kagome insisted with amusement. "I wasn't interested and told you point blank I wasn't interested, which is probably why you dosed me in the first place. It seems you found it unfathomable that a female would ever be able to resist your drunken charm."

"You remember?"

"I remember everything that happened before you dosed me the first time at the bottom of the elevator. You were clumsily flirting and I was ignoring you as well as anyone could who was holding you up from the floor," she explained. "You first noticed me when the clerk demanded a name for the logs."

"And you gave him 'SafeRide'," Sesshoumaru finished the explanation.

"Well, I certainly didn't want a suddenly sober youkai hunting me down after that to turn me into a statistic."

"This Sesshoumaru is aware." Kagome imagined him rubbing a hand over his face, or maybe he was massaging one of his temples. It wouldn't be anything new for somebody to suffer a headache after dealing with her. She was often told she could be very difficult to deal with. "I must commend you on your ability to disappear, mate. Most people suddenly in your situation wouldn't have been able to completely evade the pursuit of an inu youkai."

"Tokyo was a big help in that, I assure you," Kagome offered soothingly. His ego had probably suffered a serious blow when he couldn't track her down on his own. Inu were historically known as excellent trackers. The problem was that a lot of history didn't take place in modern urban centers like Tokyo. "That and the youkai encyclopedias I read a while back."

"Stop mate. I was complimenting your intelligence, just accept it."

"Heh, you think my ability to escape you is a clue as to how smart I am? For all you know I could just be lucky or you could be really unlucky. One or the other."

"Luck had nothing to do with it," he insisted.

"It's just that you don't know it for sure." Kagome smiled at the cashier who accepted the tender necessary to pay for her shopping before collecting her purchases and change and heading outside with a shiver. "But, to save you from doubt, you're not the first to call me intelligent so I suppose I must be, compared to some. My new school certainly thought so. Enough that they're paying my tuition, for my rent and for my meals. I also have four academic advisers."

"Is that why you chose to leave Tokyo U?"

"Nah, I had a full ride at Tokyo U too. There's a whole other story as to why I chose to come here. And it will have to wait for another time. I'm headed back to my apartment and I need to start preparing for dinner. We like to eat early on Fridays because my roommate has to work tonight, his boyfriend has a standing engagement with an evening class, and it gives me lots of time to study in peace and quiet since all the neighbors, who are also students, are out having a good time."

"We will talk again, mate," he promised.

"Certainly we will, provided you save this number."

"I will most assuredly do so," he returned.

"Get some sleep Taishou-san," Kagome advised him gently.

"I wish you would call me Sesshoumaru."

"Maybe some other time. Pleasant dreams."

"Hnn."

The click of the phone clapping shut made Kagome smile. It was almost Therapeutic to talk to Taishou-san. When she called her family, she had to put a brave face on and sound all positive. With the big inu, he didn't care what she talked about so long as she didn't hang up on him. She could scold him, spout off bits of personal philosophy and he wouldn't panic and threaten to track her down. Well he might want to, but he had no way of doing it. Mostly it was just nice to talk Japanese with someone who was willing to talk about mundane stuff. The sorts of things she used to talk to her roommates or her friends about.

She could talk to her roommate here about things, but not in Japanese. And she had to apply a censor to the things she said to her family so that they wouldn't worry too much. Taishou-san worrying didn't bother her. And soothing him was more like teasing than placating. Something she'd have to analyze later.

For now, she had some prepping to do.


	6. From a Distance

Well, now Kagome has a phone and Sesshoumaru has her number. A relationship can build in earnest since the lines of communication are open. Trust can be engendered and strengthened. But it isn't going to happen over night. No connection worth having and capable of lasting is instant. yes the romantic drivel of "love at first sight" is a wonderful fantasy, but in real life it is hardly something I would trust. What can you learn from a person on first sight? Their core values? What things they like to do? How they unwind from a long day? They're work ethic and stance on family values? No. You can only see what they look like, hardly a deep understanding of personality or character. If you get close enough you might be able to sniff out their subtle scents indicating immune system type, but as Kagome has pointed out to Sesshoumaru and I've pointed out in ANs, Instinct doesn't care about personal compatibility. I counsel sanity while Hollywood and Disney pump out fairytales and insanity.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from the first chapter of Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**From a Distance**

Sesshoumaru ran a distracted hand down his face before letting loose a weary sigh no one was around to notice. The light creeping into his apartment was weak and watery due to the time of year and the snow falling outside.

Months had passed since that fateful day when he'd marked a mate and promptly lost her to the fullness of her personality. A personality he could now see he should have developed an understanding of prior to marking her. That he hadn't could have been a prolonged error with uninterrupted access to her delightful body.

To put it bluntly, Sesshoumaru would have made their entire relationship about sex and by doing so denied himself the best friend he'd ever known. The enforced separation, alleviated by regular telephonic contact, allowed him to develop a deeper connection to the woman that was his unknown mate. He could honestly say, he knew her better now than he knew some of his blood pack and he still didn't know her name or species.

Much as he wanted to know those two pieces of information, he had to be careful. She could easily hang up and never answer his calls again if he upset her too much.

Having been raised as the heir to his alpha's vast and still growing business empire, he had been restricted in his various connections growing up. He was only supposed to be seen with the best of people even as a child. Sadly, most of those upper echelon youngsters he'd attended classes with had, like him, been groomed to take over businesses in a cutthroat world. As such he could never trust them nor they he.

His half brother, the favored son, had never been so strictly held back from outsiders. Inuyasha had attended public schools and made friends, not that Sesshoumaru had ever met most of them, but he knew the hanyou had them. He wondered now, if his life would have been vastly different if he had been treated similarly.

Sesshoumaru had never been friendly with anyone, now that he thought about it. He wasn't even certain he knew how. So really, was it any surprise that he'd resorted to one night stands to find a mate?

His watch started beeping the appointed hour, and without moving or adjusting his position Sesshoumaru hit the send button on his special phone kept close to hand at all hours of the day.

"Hello, Taishou-san," her voice greeted him cheerfully.

"What is on the agenda today, my mate?" he'd fairly well admitted they held a permanent stalemate on the subject of his name. He still disliked that she wouldn't concede to address him more informally but there was little he could do to induce her to change. She insisted that familiarity could not be gained by physical intimacy and while he had learned a great deal about her, he had kept much of himself away from her.

For the first time in his life he actually cared what somebody thought of him.

"I am wrapping Christmas gifts," she answered absently.

"Gifts? You cannot possibly have that many lovers," he declared drily. The long months of communication and getting to know her had allowed him to tease her occasionally without getting too upset. He knew she had no lovers and no intentions of finding any, not even him.

"Christmas in most countries outside of Japan is a family holiday, Taishou-san. My roommate was scandalized when he found out I hadn't bought anything for my family yet," she sighed in weary amusement, the sound of scissors slicing through paper carrying across the great distance of half a world. "It was quite dramatic. To make my life easier , I went ahead and got a few things. I was planning to send things for the new year anyway."

"Hn," Sesshoumaru snorted.

"Well, I'm not able to go home for any part of my winter break, my academic advisers won't let me. They're afraid I'll lose momentum or something," she explained distractedly. "I don't know why they'd think that, it was my idea from the start. They'd never even considered the possibility until I brought it up."

"Perhaps it is their own momentum they fear losing?" he suggested gently. If there was anything he'd learned about his mate, she was very driven. _Very driven_. Whatever it was she was after she was determined to achieve. Which reminded him, he still didn't know what she was doing.

He had an inkling. One did not talk with someone everyday for months at a time without divulging at least that. She was there to learn, thus she often studied through their calls.

As an inu, Sesshoumaru couldn't give up the only connection he had with his mate, but listening to her mumble through her notes about one or the other of her subjects wasn't particularly engaging. He wanted to connect with her, to talk to her, be a part of whatever she was interested in. Underlying this intensely unmanageable desire was most likely his mate's continued insistence that he wasn't worthy of her _because_ he didn't know enough about her to understand why she wouldn't stay. He'd had to assume that she left to pursue her continued education which was certainly her plan before he marked her. She obviously was determined to excel at it, continuing to study almost to the point of completely ignoring him on many occasions.

So, Sesshoumaru took steps. It took a bit of persuasion to get her to send him a list of her books, but he ultimately succeeded and had since been helping her study. He was still trying to figure out what exactly she was attempting to do. In the meanwhile he was learning quite a bit.

She was obviously pursuing a medical career as all her text books had to do with physiology, immune systems, and treatment courses. Under normal circumstances, Sesshoumaru would have been able to identify her species based on the species she was allowed to study as most schools limited their admissions to each program so that humans learned human medicine and youkai learned youkai medicine. Tokyo University took it a step further by limiting Female youkai to studying pediatrics and midwifery and males to the more technical specialties such as surgery and the like.

His mate, however, was studying human _and_ youkai medicine, which he'd never even heard was allowed anywhere.

"It occurs to this Sesshoumaru to wonder what your ultimate goal is, mate." He had wondered it before and had asked about it. Actually, he'd demanded what could take precedence over a mating with him. She'd always failed to provide an answer, brushing him off. Over the last few months he'd grown to believe that she had done so because of the way he'd handled the subject. He hadn't been interested in knowing because he was truly interested, but because it got in the way of what he wanted. Maybe now she would answer since Sesshoumaru truly was curious and he was certain she could sense it.

"It's a long story, if you want to know it. Do you have the time?" she asked him. Letting him know that she was finally willing to divulge the information.

"This Sesshoumaru is done with exams and classes through January, mate. There is plenty of time for you," he replied a tad too eager, which drew a gentle chuckle from her end of the phone.

"You're just bored," she teased him.

"Perhaps, but I also wish to know what has so many professors determined to keep you buried in text books."

"It is pretty unusual I suppose but in order to tell you what I intend to do, I have to tell you why," her tone was ponderous as she fell silent. For a while he feared she'd changed her mind about speaking to him but then she started to speak again with a nostalgic tone. "When I was little, I was never very popular. Most kids didn't know what to make of me but tolerated me well enough to talk politely to me much of the time. My grandparents had long been well respected in a quiet way by the majority of the community and, while my peers generally thought them crazy, that respect from the parents kept me from being left out of things like odd kids tend to be." His mate was rather blasé about the topic now, but Sesshoumaru imagined she had been anything but at the time. "Or at least, that was how things were until my grandmother died."

Sesshoumaru knew his mate had been close to her grandmother though he wasn't truly certain what that closeness had entailed.

"In the months after her death, nobody talked to me. Part of it was, I'm sure, that they simply didn't know what to say. Most kids these days don't lose family members like that when they're so young, so they didn't know how it felt and could offer no words that either wouldn't upset me more or make them feel even more uncomfortable. So in fear of offending, they said nothing and left me alone. And I wallowed in it." She sighed morosely, "Looking back now, it was like I was drowning and the silence was just swallowing me up until I couldn't talk. I didn't know how to deal with it. Grandmother had been my strongest support all through the death of my father before that. But without her to help me through her own...I was just collapsing under the strain of it." She sniffed a moment before moving on. "It was a good thing we got a transfer student in our class a few months after she died. We didn't often get new students at our school despite its being a Tokyo public school. Our community was fairly stable and our student body traditionally unchanging. So it was a major thing for us to receive a transfer student in the middle of the school year."

"I don't think just any transfer student would have had the same affect on me though, despite the general excitement, if he wasn't also something completely new to all of us."

"He," Sesshoumaru started to growl.

"Don't start getting jealous about anything until you've heard the entire story," she scolded him abruptly. The sound of scissors running through wrapping paper echoed down the line almost threateningly, he had asked for the story and was interrupting it in an untimely manner. "You'll feel silly if you don't hear the end before you allow the story to affect you."

"Hn, please continue."

Sesshoumaru was certain he could hear her smirk as she continued. "He was hanyou, and despite the previously mixed heritage of our school and the abstract knowledge that there were such people in the world, I and many of the others had never met one. Again, even that probably wouldn't have been enough to bring me up out of the pit I'd been swallowed by, except...Well, the youkai in our class avoided him because he avoided them too. And the humans, they had learned many years previously that it was best to observe a youkai prior to attempting to make friends because every species prefers different behaviors and displays of respect, but also because youkai are more forgiving when familiar with their fellows. Only, it was taking a lot longer with him because he shrank away even from them. Like me, nobody disliked him completely, but nobody talked to him either."

"He was very lucky to have been placed in my class, because nobody bullied anybody around me. Apparently I had a very terrifying look of disapproval and by the time of his arrival I had already trained everybody in my class out of such behaviors through the use of it with lethal accuracy. But that didn't keep him from being alone all the time, and I believed it meant that he was lonely – like I was beginning to feel I was too. So I decided in determined, childish fashion that he was going to be my friend. And I told him so at the first opportunity and many times after that."

"Quite forward of you," he couldn't help but comment. Though he could just imagine her doing such a thing. Nothing held his mate back from achieving whatever she set out to achieve. Not mating and certainly not unfamiliarity.

She laughed warmly, "I don't think he knew what to make of me. I was always provoking him into something whether it was annoyance, frustration, laughter I always tried to get him to respond to me. And it still took two months before I heard him say anything. I was so elated I told him he was going to marry me when we grew up!" her laughter slowly quieted after her statement and he was lucky she didn't seem to hear his growl. "I learned later that the reason his parents had transferred him into our school was because of how badly he'd been bullied in his last school. They'd terrorized him until he stopped talking and he generally arrived home gasping for breath and near tears." She sighed, "They didn't know what to make of me either, but apparently decided that since I got him to talk again they'd try to believe the best of me until proven otherwise."

"He never could get away from me at school, and he tried so hard sometimes too. If he looked even mildly interested in doing something our classmates were involved in I would ask if we could join them before he could protest that he didn't really want to. I figured he was just shy, and most times he played along and was grinning before whatever game or activity was finished. But I made sure never to push him into anything he really didn't want to do." She paused to pay attention to something on her end for a moment, perhaps to take a drink of water before she continued. "Eventually I think he realized what I was doing and decided that I wasn't bad, though he came to that decision very reluctantly. I was such a frustration to him after all!"

This time the pause was preparatory for the next part of the story, and Sesshoumaru could sense the abrupt change in her mood from their bond, despite the great distance and whatever she was using to muffle it. "We were thick as thieves and all the class grew to really like him after a while though he was always referred to as my friend." He could hear her old sorrow collecting in the deeper nuances of her voice though he couldn't fathom what was causing it.

"About two years after he came to us, an illness swept through school. It was one of those normal childhood diseases that most kids get and then quickly get over in a few days. Most missed a couple days of school. All of the humans got it, and a handful of the youkai did too. I was out for a full three days when I came down with it, and by the time I went back to school, he'd caught it also." She took a deep breath and continued. "I hadn't seen him in far longer an interval than had happened since I met him and I missed him. So I convinced the teacher to give me his homework and when my mom came to pick me up, I persuaded her to take me to his house."

"We rang the bell and knocked on their door, I grew more and more anxious the longer we waited while my mother grew more and more confused until a neighbor informed us that the family had rushed out to the hospital early that morning. I wanted to go to the hospital right then, but it was growing late and mother wanted to go home and get started on dinner for grandpa and my brother. She was also worried about letting me stay out too late as I was recovering from that illness myself." She paused again, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly before continuing. "We went home. The next day at school, I talked all my classmates and my teachers into helping me make one thousand paper cranes to take to him. I collected his homework and when mother came to pick me up, I demanded we go visit him in the hospital despite how much I didn't like hospitals. The only times I'd ever been to one was while my grandmother was sick before she died and in the emergency waiting room when my dad died. But I was determined to go see him."

"I don't think my mother was expecting to see him in ICU." She stated and his heart clenched. He knew where this was going to end and he didn't like it for the child his mate had been despite the woman she had managed to become afterward. "I wasn't even allowed to enter his room and give him the cranes or his homework. I could just stare at him through the glass and tap at the window hoping to wake him up and draw his attention. He looked worse than my Grandmother had, he was paler than the bed linens and so small. His breathing was labored and fast and the color was high in his cheeks, making the rest of him look even paler. I watched the nurses come and go, looking grim and confused. Even the doctors that came through looked unnerved and uncertain."

"I never knew that doctors could look that way. Even the ones gathered around my Grandmother in those last days were confident, grim but confident and fully aware of what they could do for her. I was stunned that something so simple as a child's sickness could shake them so. We stayed until visiting hours were over and my mother took me home. That night I had terrible nightmares about my grandmother and my father and about him that scared me so bad I crawled into bed with my mother. When I woke up the next morning I refused to go to school. My mother didn't even attempt to fight with me about it and just quietly drove me to the hospital." Her breath hitched with emotion briefly before she bravely mustered on with the story. "He died...sometime in the night. His parents were still there though and I begged his mother to give him the paper cranes. She and my mother were both surprised since paper cranes were supposed to be given at other times and for other reasons, but I insisted that if he didn't get them, then my grandmother wouldn't know to look after him for me until I got there." She sniffed, "For years after that, I made a point of giving a paper crane to every hanyou I met, I was afraid that something innocuous like a childhood illness would make them disappear before I got to know them."

"I am sorry mate," Sesshoumaru realized he didn't know what he was asking when he'd demanded to know what she was reaching for. This story was personal and emotional. No wonder she hadn't told him about it before. This was not a story for idle curiosity, there was too much of herself in it.

She heaved a great sigh before continuing, "Years later I remembered the faces of the doctors and nurses and was surprised again that they hadn't been able to do anything for him, so I did some research. Did you know that despite the increasing number of hanyou births, nobody has actually studied and developed any medical treatments specific to hanyou? I couldn't believe it. My good friend died of something so simple and so young because there simply wasn't enough information on hanyou and how they deal with disease naturally, so the doctors had no idea how to help him fight off his illness when he needed it." She huffed, clearly still scandalized by this revelation. "So, I decided that I was going to fix the problem."

"You intend to develop treatments for hanyou?" Sesshoumaru was stunned. This project of hers would take years. "How do you even know where to begin?"

"With youkai and human medicine naturally. I'm going to learn both, the better to figure out which more closely resembles hanyou. Or whether its a combination of the two rather than just one or the other." It made sense, he supposed. There was no where else for a child to get DNA from but the parents. Genetics defined the total make up of a body including the built in defenses against disease.

Most hanyou died very young for the very same reason as her friend did. He'd never questioned the reason for the statistics despite his own brother being one of the few to reach adulthood. "I have a hanyou brother," he murmured thoughtfully.

"I am aware of that, Taishou-san," she chuckled mildly. "I've read a paper or two in my time."

"Thank you for sharing this with me," Sesshoumaru was pleased to have learned something so important about her, but more than that, he found he greatly admired her for her drive, motivation, and her goals. It took a very special person to notice a deficiency in society and then step up to personally see it fixed.

"Thank you for being interested," she replied warmly. "Most schools were surprised when I applied to both the human and youkai medical programs. Many refused to even consider me for one or the other. This school was the only one to ask why I would do so. Once they realized what I was after, they were very encouraging. Maybe even impressed."

This was why she had four academic advisers and a full ride at her foreign school. Sesshoumaru imagined a number of her advisers were youkai themselves, probably related to a hanyou or two. He wouldn't be surprised if they had pooled together to supply that scholarship for her personally. It also explained why they were so afraid of her losing momentum. She was the first and only student aiming to develop hanyou medicine. If she failed, who knew how long it would take someone else to make the attempt. If she succeeded, it was likely his mate would start up a program to teach others after her. For she was one person and the world was a wide, expansive place.

Sesshoumaru could honestly say he was awed by his mate, by what she was attempting to accomplish, and how she was refusing to let the unknown intimidate her. And he was jealous, because he had nothing he'd ever cared to accomplish as much as she obviously desired to do this. He had no goals of his own, only ones that had been assigned to him by his sire. Never before had it been so very clear that, once again, he had proven unworthy of her.

"Are you all right, Taishou-san?"

"This Sesshoumaru _is_ unworthy of you," he spoke his thoughts aloud.

"What?"

"You have purpose and passion. You are real and whole and amazing." He continued. "This Sesshoumaru is nothing like that, has nothing like that."

"Then find yours," she replied simply. "Everyone has something that will drive them to accomplish great things. You just need to find yours."

"How?"

"I'll help you," she answered. "But until we've found yours, you can share in mine. It's big enough and you're already helping me with it."

There was truth in her words that he allowed to soothe him.


	7. Quiet Respite

Time for Sesshoumaru to take stock of himself. Time has passed, his life has changed and continues to change. He is learning about his mate but having a bit of difficulty incorporating what he's learned in his dealings with her. He hasn't even realized that some of their discussions about her life could apply to his in some big ways. But he has an inkling. It needs to percolate a little and he needs to do some very private thinking. Good thing he has the time in this chapter.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from the first chapter of Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Quiet Respite**

Since Sesshoumaru had never previously bothered to learn anything about most of the women he'd encountered beyond how best to get them out of their clothes, this completely platonic approach to his own mate was proving to be a true eye opener.

As foolish as it seemed, thinking back on it now, he could admit that he had believed the age old hype pertaining to females and their universal desires. He had tailored his plans to fit into that older maxim that all women desired to be swept off their feet by the spectacularly handsome and wealthy male of their dreams. This was generally followed by a huge ceremonial announcement of their newly attached state and the creation of unnumbered pups that proved their continued state of "Happily ever after".

Sesshoumaru had never imagined that a female could have other priorities to accomplish prior to seeking that state of domestic bliss. Most Japanese women, statistically speaking, sought higher education and the ghost of a career in order to meet men of higher socioeconomic class before settling on one and dropping out of the work force to eternally gloat over her wedded accomplishment by periodically baring young. Youkai females depended on their breeding to introduce them to the worthwhile males of their species to produce similar results. Generally, they all dreamed that their goal would be obtained under romantic conditions, "love at first sight" being a general favorite.

Apparently, the stereotype wasn't universal, or even marginally accurate. According to his mate, every female desired something different from her life in the same way that every male had unique goals of his own based on personality, family motivations, and past experience. Her roommate was a pointed example she enjoyed rubbing in his face. Her gay roommie certainly wasn't on the look out for any Miss Right, wasn't eager to have progeny, and wanted to work for non-profit medical organizations that traveled through third world countries. By contrast, his sister, whom his mate had met on more than one occasion, intended to go into politics, studied law, and refused to have more than one night stands.

Their mother had single-handedly supported their family respectably well, pursuing a career in a predominately male run industry and excelling at it. Their father was a stay at home writer who attended PTA meetings and campaigned for whichever charities struck his fancy.

His mate's Mother worked as a nurse despite her two kids and senile father-in-law who worked at the home shrine and met with other Buddhist priests to complain about everything younger than themselves. Her father, when he had been alive worked as a government consultant and often stayed far from home. His income would have provided enough for his wife to stay at home, but she'd worked even then all the same. Her little brother wanted to be a professional athlete on the National soccer team and his latest girlfriend planned to be a computer programmer because she could work from home if she had to.

Truly, taking a mate had provided him with a broader education than he'd ever imagined possible or ever received from his long history of attending the finest educational institutions. Sesshoumaru had never been so intimately exposed to the many varied dreams and goals of people. As an inu in a fairly small but prominent pack, there had been little opportunity to converse candidly with anyone as a young pup. He had been the one to allow it to remain a habit as an adult. Partly because he hadn't realize there was so much to enrich his relationships outside his pack, but mostly because he didn't know how to change it.

But he was learning.

Sesshoumaru lay sprawled across his crimson, satin sheets waiting for the phone to ring as the hours of the day crept by. He had absolutely no intention of moving or doing much of anything else today, for today was the day for lovers. Despite how other nations viewed the holiday, Sesshoumaru was a product of his culture, and in his culture Christmas was a holiday spent with a lover. As such Sesshoumaru had worked hard to talk his mate into calling him as soon as she made it home from her roommate's family gathering. It wouldn't be Christmas for him by then, but it was better than no contact at all.

She'd gone to the big old, small town, house with her roommate and his lover last night to participate in all the festivities apparently celebrated in a western country in relation to this holiday. The infamous Brett-san had quite forcefully insisted on her attendance since she wasn't allowed to go home. Her plans were to return sometime after lunch on Christmas day, her time, at her professors' behest.

She'd complained about her impending boredom as without her Brett-san to work with her she wasn't being scheduled at her part time job and with classes let out for the break and her chronic insomnia she was looking at a long stretch of empty hours to fill. With the holiday being what it was, she wouldn't even have much access to the local library to pick up new reading material.

So he'd tried to badger her into a promise to call. Unsuccessfully.

Or actually, she had almost promised to call until he'd tried to turn her promise into agreement of preplanned phone sex. Sesshoumaru was all but desperate.

He was inu for kami's sakes. Inu were never meant to go as long as he had without sexual release. Especially this inu, as he had, prior to his mating, generally fed his sexual appetite as often as the urge occurred to him. Being a normal, healthy inu that had naturally required several marathon sexual escapades in any given week. As a newly mated male his sexual appetite increased. Unfortunately, the one he wanted wasn't available to help him with his need.

Sesshoumaru could no longer remember what it was like to wake up feeling well rested. His nights were filled with arousing visions of all the things he'd done to his little mate in their one night or all the things he'd like to do to her delectable little body when he tracked her down someday. So when he woke in the morning, or often in the middle of the night, he was rock hard with no relief in sight. Most males would be able to see to the problem presented to him upon waking without necessarily involving any outside assistance. Not this mated inu, it appeared.

Without the scent of his female significantly thick in the air, Sesshoumaru could not find the pinnacle of physical pleasure and release. His only recourse was to pray that a cold shower offered him some painful relief.

And like every time he'd brought it up with her, his mate flippantly told him to take a lover. It was most frustrating. He hadn't told her then, like he probably wouldn't tell her now, he couldn't. Sesshoumaru really did need her scent in the air to achieve orgasm which was why he'd made the request of her he did.

He had finagled a gift from her. It had taken some fancy persuasion, reiterating the importance of scent to an inu which he was certain had been supported by her previous readings, but eventually he'd been successful. He wanted a garment from her that would be steeped in her personal scent. This limited what she could send him and he'd trusted her medical knowledge and common sense to realize that without Sesshoumaru spelling it out. She'd sent him a bra, which arrived yesterday still soaked in her scent, though it wasn't exactly what he'd wanted when he'd coaxed her underwear off her. Truly it was the scent that mattered most to him, although he'd been aiming for her panties. They would have been more thoroughly soaked in her scent and thus would've given him greater comfort for a longer period of time. Plus there was also the invigorating thought of laying hands on a garment that rode her body so close to where he most wished to be.

But it was better than the complete lack of anything with her scent Sesshoumaru had lived with before. The minute he'd opened the package yesterday and released her scent to stain the air of his penthouse apartment, Sesshoumaru's body had reacted.

It had taken iron control to not immediately seek self gratification. It was more important to do what he could to preserve her scent in the soft fabric. Sesshoumaru had no idea when he would next be able to coax such an important concession from his mate so he definitely had to see to it this treasure's comfort would last as long as possible.

The minute his task was completed, his sire called upon him to attend an evening conference with some business associates. Sesshoumaru barely had time to take a freezing shower before leaving to attend the mind-numbing event.

As usual, he spent the duration avoiding the other young heirs forced into company with him. Sesshoumaru had cultivated a rather detached manner that held all comers at the frigid outer borders of his concern. This night, he was a bit more taciturn than normal, given that most the others arrived with dates tittering gayly over Christmas plans and irritating his sensitive hearing.

His grumpier mood had even won him an icy glare sent his way from his sire. Thankfully, the event being what it was, prevented an exchange of words with the male that had dragged him away from the first bit of promised peace Sesshoumaru had been able to grasp in months.

He'd returned home so late, there was nothing for it but to strip off the restricting costume he was required to wear for these things and drop into his bed. Sesshoumaru was so tired he almost forgot to open the protective covering on her gift to flood his bedroom with the soft cloud of her scent before he slipped into unconsciousness.

Surprisingly, his sleep was deep and peaceful. For the first time since waking up to the abandonment of his mate, Sesshoumaru slept though the night. His dreams had been filled with the soothing and companionable sensation of a warm body lying trustingly beside him. It was a warm and elusive sensation he couldn't remember ever knowing previously, even as a pup. There was a sense of security - illusory, obviously, but the feeling was nice.

Sesshoumaru woke up slowly to the sun streaming through his panoramic window and immediately decided not to get out of bed if he didn't have to. He'd never before had a lazy day and had only heard of them recently from his mate. Even then, he hadn't quite understood the appeal of indolently lounging about doing nothing. But then, he'd never felt quite as comfortably mellow as he did today. Neither had he ever slept in quite so late without strenuous exertion in the bedroom the night before. More so than his regular marathon sessions, closer to the effort and time spent the night of his somewhat disastrous mating.

Sesshoumaru languidly shifted position and watched the gray clouds roil and pool outside the wide glass window. Sometime in the late afternoon, snow began to fall in the slow drifting way that most imagined when picturing Christmas snowfall. An hour later, it started to come down a little harder as the day waxed into the early darkness of winter.

After the city lights started to stain the canopy of snow filled clouds, Sesshoumaru got hungry and was obliged to leave the warm comfort of his bed to search out his kitchen. He didn't bother with the lights or covering his nudity. He was alone, it was Christmas and he seldom allowed himself to indulge. Mostly because, every interlude spent in his personal apartment had a finite and definite end either due to expecting a summons from his sire and alpha, or an appointment already set to call him away.

The heir of such a large business franchise seldom had time without demands on it. But he knew today there could be no last minute calls from his alpha, for even in Tokyo, very few CEOs would put up with the business intrigues Taishou Hiroyuki played, not on Christmas. Too many of them knew better than that.

The males may run most of the businesses that his alpha competed and negotiated with, but all were affiliated with some female or other and thus all were required to spend this day with their respective females. It occurred to Sesshoumaru to wonder which female the esteemed Taishou was spending his evening with this night. It was no secret that Izayoi and Sesshoumaru's own mother were both still attached to the inu multi-billionaire. It was a favorite topic in a number of the so-called gossip rags.

As a boy, Sesshoumaru hadn't realized how unusual his family circumstances were until Izayoi managed to birth the whelp, Inuyasha. Before then, all three of his parents had doted on him equally. In naive childish fashion, he believed his mother and his father loved him and Izayoi loved him because she couldn't have any other children of her own. Those were happy days, or as happy as Sesshoumaru could ever remember his days being. Even then, those days always held a hint of sadness, a sort of longing in Izayoi's eyes and a cold distance in his father's at all times.

It wasn't until Izayoi's pregnancy made the rounds of the tabloids that Sesshoumaru learned the truth behind his conception. He was born for a purpose other than just to show the love of his parents with each other. More than that, he learned his own mother had birthed him only for what she could gain. Why she remained with his father after that, Sesshoumaru had never bothered to ask, though he was certain it was due to some level of attachment to his sire. Females were strange that way.

Sesshoumaru was certain that if there were a way for an inu to take two mates, his father would have marked both females, for as surely as he drew breath, Taishou Hiroyuki had no intention of letting either female free of him. It did not surprise him, for inu were possessive to a fault. Males especially so. What so disgusted him, if disgust were the right term, is that both females allowed their male to hold on to both. They cheapened themselves, as his mate would say, by doing so.

As a boy, he hadn't understood the complexities of a romantic relationship between adults. As an adult, he couldn't understand how the three of them had allowed their lives to become a three ring circus for the most creative writer to paint in increasing depravity and lurid hues of lust and, if the respective author were feeling kind, love. Sesshoumaru sneered at the thought. But he was no better.

Sesshoumaru had crafted an image in the public eye of reckless drunkenness. The difference, he generally told himself in times past, was that he was not actually mated to any of the women he'd allowed to be pictured beside himself. He had been single and living the life of the young, famous, and wealthy. He'd never dreamed his behavior would be turned on him so blatantly when he achieved his purpose for building such a reputation.

Sesshoumaru drew his thoughts away from the tangled mess of his family bonds and public behavior amazed that the darkness had drawn his thoughts down such long avoided corridors. But he supposed, that was the point of a truly lazy day, to think about all the things you hadn't time to think of before.

His mate had a cathartic way of drawing his thoughts from the buzzing life of a pseudo-celebrity poised to unwillingly take over the business world to the slower quieter hum of more personal paths. She, Sesshoumaru had learned over time, made a point to think seriously on a number of more emotional topics that he'd never had the stomach to do himself. The result, he'd found, was a truer tranquility than he'd ever attempted to portray. She was solid in her skin, comfortable and accepting of all her flaws. Not that he was ever willing to believe she had any beyond her unwillingness to return to him.

But after her anecdotal reason for the distance between them, he could no longer argue that point. He had a hanyou half brother himself. And while Sesshoumaru had long blamed the shattering of what had been the illusion of a happy family on Inuyasha, he never wished him dead. Truthfully, he sort of felt it would be an insult to the power of his father's blood if Inuyasha ever succumbed to the same type of thing as her childhood friend. As such, he was proud of her for making the effort to prevent it from happening.

Knowledge, as they say, is power.

Around midnight, Sesshoumaru left off his gazing out the window and his thoughts of the mysterious nuances of his Alpha's romances and decided to take a shower. It was the first time since the morning after marking his mate that the water running down his body was warm enough to create the steam necessary to fog the mirror. He stood there as the water ran down his shoulders reveling in the sweet warmth that pounded over his back and swept through his lengthening silver hair heedless of the time that passed.

Showers were magical places, his mate had told him. Something in the mix of steam and water and relaxation became quiet reflection and soft revelation. He hadn't understood what she meant when she said it. All Sesshoumaru's recent experiences with showers were unpleasant freezing episodes in attempt to bring down his swelling need. He'd only stood under the spray long enough to achieve his purpose before gratefully turning off the cold water. After half a year of going without it, there was no way for him to take the hot water for granted. And his mate's words slowly made sense as his skin became gradually acclimated to the heat.

With the stream of steady water and the release of what little tension was left in his shoulders drained away, it occurred to him that the shower itself contained no magic beyond the reality that there was little to distract him from his thoughts. The motions of bathing required little conscious attention, leaving much of the mind to wander over other things. Such as his mate's suggestion that he take a class that had little to do with his rather concrete future.

Sesshoumaru had never been able to keep his lack of ambition in regards to his future from his mate. Whether he just tried to keep it out of conversation beyond letting her know about his plans for the evening beyond their precious phone calls or his attempt to avoid talking about his classes, she picked up on the lack of enthusiasm. He supposed it wasn't terribly difficult to pick up on such a thing for her, who went about everything in her day eager to tackle any obstacle she encountered. The lack of such in himself was just one more thing to point at and show how much of a mismatch he was for her.

How was Sesshoumaru to woo her back to his side when he kept proving himself insufficient. After her great disclosure concerning the very emotional decision to pursue her current medical career, he had even been so foolish as to inform her of the great discrepancies between them as individuals.

Instead of spurning him as he was certain she would do the minute he'd realized what he'd told her, she'd offered to help him grow as a person. She told him that passion can take many forms be they quiet or bold, private or public. Sometimes people, like his mate, are allowed to make their dream into a career, but most could only pursue the things they truly enjoyed as a hobby.

Sesshoumaru didn't have a hobby and had never attempted to pursue anything beyond what was required of him. She'd seemed worried when he told her that. His mate told him that hobbies and passions were the best way to release stress. They helped to maintain sanity in a world all too full of random insanity. Seeing an opportunity to try and persuade her to reveal her present location, he'd tried to convince her that most inu found their comfort in the presence of their mate.

His mate had actually scoffed at that. She had argued that sex was not always the answer to everything, least of all his forecast of problems. And while he could possibly ease some of his stress through the company of a lover (the term drew a growl of frustration from him), the results would be a temporary band-aid for his bigger issues. The truest comfort to be had in a real relationship was of course, being able to relate one person to another. And there was no such thing as an interesting relate-able person without a passion or interest that could be discussed or shared with another. His mate believed that part of the reason divorce was so prevalent in today's world was because of a distinct lack of maintaining connection with all the things that had made them individuals prior to wedding.

It was hard to keep the same interest in a housewife that had been found in an ambitious artist or lawyer or teacher or idealist. Just as it was difficult to find the same intrigue in the beleaguered white collar man that had been out to change the world, or play his music or fix up his cars. Passion for something was the spark that drew people to each other and while necessity often required a body to cut back on the amount of time spent pursuing those individual passions, they shouldn't be dropped entirely.

She'd made up her mind that he needed something beyond his eminent position as a CEO. He expressed a want in his person of something he could be passionate about and so she'd taken to brainstorming possible suggestions for his down time. Her latest suggestion had been that he take up art, and like all her other suggestions, Sesshoumaru had neglected to give it real consideration. Until the shower drove him to really ponder her choice and the reasons she gave for it.

His mate had decided that whatever he did had best be creative in nature. His business endeavors were mostly given to tearing down the hard work of others therefore his off time should be spent building up something to help balance that out. Sports and Athleticism were out because, while she believed he would be good at them and possibly even enjoy the exercise, he was unlikely to grow passionate about something that had limited potential to grow with him. She'd also, by the same token, eliminated starting a collection of pretty much anything since youkai lived a long time and Sesshoumaru wasn't the type to hold on to or collect anything he couldn't use. Sentimental, he wasn't.

His mate had laughingly ruled out the pursuit of music due to his inu hearing and the inevitable discordant sounds of every beginner on an instrument. Thinking back on his younger days in his private schools, the halls echoing with the efforts of some classmate or other attempting to master a violin or piano, Sesshoumaru had equally agreed.

So she had suggested art.

Sesshoumaru had never considered art as something he would enjoy, and nobody else had ever thought to suggest it to him either, but he couldn't argue with her reasoning. Sesshoumaru was already long used to the smell of graphite and ink from their long usage in his school work. Chalk was hardly more irritating. Water colours, if he progressed that far presented little issue. And that was only the logical extension from the beginner drawing and sketching that typically marked a new interest in art.

Perhaps his mate had chosen well for him. Even if she did tease him that once he got beyond stick figures he could draw nude models. At this point the only nude model he was interested in was a female that lived half a world away and wore his mark under her clothing.

Sesshoumaru turned off the water in the shower when it started to chill and reached for the fluffy towel on the rack. Diligently he removed the excess water from his skin and long hair before once again sprawling naked over the crimson sheets of his bed. The impact of his body with the bed sent up a cloud of scent infused with that of his mate causing his body once more to react. He fought off the urge to attempt to do something about it before his mate called. With his luck, she would call before he finished and would easily pick up on what he was doing. The smirk that curled his lips was slightly rueful as he remembered that long ago call he made following one of the first of his almost wet dreams. There was no doubt in his mind that she wouldn't appreciate it.

As if in answer to his thoughts, the magical sound of his phone ringing cut through the settled silence of his apartment and Sesshoumaru answered its summons swiftly, pleased at this call like he never was when the caller was his sire.

"Hello, my mate," Sesshoumaru growled that low instinctive rumble designed to entice his mate into carnality.

"Merry Christmas, Taishou-san," her warm voice answered from the other side of the world.


	8. Secret Valentines

It always amuses me when people beg to know what's going to happen. Warnings as to pacing and length just aren't getting through. So I'm going to drop bald broad hints and be explicit. Kagome and Sesshoumaru will not be meeting up before Kagome establishes some working form of hanyou medicine. This will take years. Standard medical programs require three years of intensive study followed by one year tailing behind a supervising physician to gain exposure to the various types of medicine. Upon completion of that one year, a student will select a specialty and arrange a residency position at a hospital that supports the learning of the specialty. Kagome's specialty is already selected but doesn't exist as a program anywhere so she would have to select a hospital that will see a relatively high admission rate of her target patients.

She needs to develop theories how the mixing of youkai and human would develop an immune system, how it would fight disease, how a doctor could support that immune system's efforts. She needs to test her theories safely. This will all take time, years of time. They will not meet again for years. Stop asking. A relationship will not blossom over night and I don't write short stories. There are many things to be learned on both sides and rampant distrust from both sides to overcome.

Beyond that, Sesshoumaru's familial relationships are not close. There's no real affection there and only a tentative connection with Inuyasha due to the circumstances surrounding the birth of both males. Sesshoumaru was conceived because His father's mate, Izayoi, hadn't yet managed to conceive and carry a healthy babe to term. He was created due to contract with a woman selected merely to birth the heir. What all that contract entails has never been discussed with Sesshoumaru but we know enough about his mother to know she's a social climber and she's still part of the family as a second female, almost second mate. Inuyasha was a miracle baby in that he was even born. His birth eliminated the need for Sesshoumaru to exist at all because, if not for Sesshoumaru, Inuyasha would be heir regardless of his mixed genetics. This was explained in the last chapter. Sesshoumaru has never known happy family relations towards himself. Love is not part of his equation.

Now, for the chapter. Sesshoumaru's about to get himself into a lot of trouble. But then, he's a guy, it was bound to happen!

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Secret Valentines**

Kagome fussed with the gourmet cookies she'd purchased to help dress up the rather plain looking cake. Idly rearranging the little two toned discs in effort to find the most appealing arrangement on the plate, she moved around the table filling the edges of the plate.

Valentines day was coming up, and while Kagome had never failed to celebrate the holiday in time honored Japanese tradition it had never been for the usual romantic reasons.

Kagome always gave away chocolates to anybody she could find a viable reason to. But it was never due to amorous intentions. She did it simply because making those chocolates helped to fill the hours she spent awake every night. She'd made chocolates for her family and her classmates all through her middle school and high school years. Her confections had grown more and more elaborate and delicate until she'd realized her mother was worrying that Kagome wasn't spending time on anything else. Then she'd started to hold back.

After high school graduation, Kagome'd had fewer people to gift on Valentines day. You didn't exactly have a set class of thirty or so people in college. Besides, by the time people reached college, amorous connotations couldn't be escaped from the gifting of chocolate unless it was to roommates, long term friends, and family.

This year she had Taishou Sesshoumaru on her list because the excuse was there. She wasn't in love with him, didn't even particularly like him, but there was a relationship between them. She was his friend, though he would claim more intimacy and so, as a friend he had deserved something for the holiday like all her other friends.

It had been fun trying to think up something she could make Taishou-san for Valentines day since chocolates were out of the question. Inu youkai were notoriously allergic to chocolate, though not so much that it would kill them. Kagome liked a challenge, and she was determined to send him something if for no other reason than that.

Luckily, Kagome already had a treat she'd wanted to attempt creating.

During her brief sojourn over the Christmas holiday, her roommate's family had produced as part of their family feast a particularly intriguing cake she'd never even heard of. It wasn't much to look at by itself. The finished cake was mostly just brown from the caramelized sugars in the batter and fruit. What had surprised Kagome, was that, despite the fruit involved in both the naming and baking of the cake, it did not taste overwhelmingly of it. A Japanese confection so named would taste as close to the original flavors in the identifying fruit as humanly possible as to taste of almost nothing else. Foreign countries it seemed, cared not for the natural, inherent flavor notes as much as creating new and different flavors to enjoy from the combinations of different things.

Kagome had done a bit of looking on-line for a really good recipe and tried them out on her ever so willing roommate a couple times in the last few weeks. Her original intent had nothing to do with her Inu caller. She'd just wanted something to do and baking was a quiet enough task that she could do it while Brett-san slept.

She'd put off her cake baking efforts to whip up the usual chocolate confections for her family, her professors, and her roommate and his boyfriend. But she'd been fairly well stumped on what to give Taishou Sesshoumaru. Chocolate was out and all Kagome had been able to think of were the gourmet dog cookies you could buy at the store.

There was no way she would try baking such things from scratch. Kagome perfected her baking efforts through taste-testing, and pork and bacon flavored two tone cookies did not appeal. And she very much doubted they appealed to Brett and Louis-san either. Such adventurous forays into baking would have to wait until she had a full time canine mouth to try them out on.

But buying the dog cookies, while a thoughtful gift for an inu youkai, just hadn't seemed like enough since she hadn't made them herself.

Then last week during one of Taishou-san's near daily calls, he'd expressed an old unfulfilled desire to study abroad when he was younger. Kagome took this to mean he'd wanted to step out of the world he'd known and explore a bit. Experience new things on his own without the overshadowing presence of his immediate family. He'd obviously not done so, as his situation apparently demanded his presence remain in Japan, but Kagome was in a foreign country and trying new things and she could just as easily share some of those things with him.

No other member of her family had desired such. Her grandfather generally spoke of all things foreign with distrust and her mother expressed no curiosity over the differences between Japan and her daughter's current home. Sota was absolutely convinced he already knew all about it and didn't want to know different. So Kagome had stuck with the traditional homemade chocolates for her family, but for Taishou Sesshoumaru, she made him something she'd doubted he'd ever even heard of.

Finally accepting that there was really very little more she could do to dress up her Pineapple upside down cake, Kagome picked up the camera Taishou-san bought her for New Year.

When Kagome had talked the big inu into taking up art, specifically drawing, she'd decided to support him by taking up photography. Oh she wasn't going to get really serious about it, originally. The chemicals for developing film were expensive, but she was more than willing to take tons of digital pictures and send them to him for drawing practice. Knowing he would most likely start with still life, she'd sent appropriate pictures.

Taking pictures of produce at the grocery store or desert displays in restaurants had been her first personal assignments. As filler shots, she took pictures of the tree growing in the courtyard of the complex. When the snows finally melted she'd probably start catching the flowers and other greenery coming alive.

Being Japanese, Kagome admired and respected every period of nature, from the lush green growth of spring, to the barren silent slumber of deepest winter. Watching the progress of those seasons was an ingrained habit and serenity inducing activity. Having never been in this country to watch those seasons change before had left her with a strong interest in the possible differences from her homeland. Summer had been cooler than she was used to, Autumn prolonged and far more colorful. Winter was lingering and frigid leaving her breathless with anticipation for the coming of spring.

Occasionally she discussed the differences between Japanese seasons and the ones she was experiencing for the first time with her inu caller. She was always very careful not to indicate where these seasons were taking place, though she supposed he could be certain she was in the same hemisphere eleven to thirteen hours away by lines of longitude, which was still a pretty large slice of territory.

Snapping pictures of her cake and cookies from just about every angle she could get, Kagome danced about the table trying to find the best lighting for the job. She would sort through the images later for the best one and delete the rest before sending the memory stick to Tokyo in the package with the cake and cookies carefully arranged to keep from damage. She was also planning to send a note and an extra little secret something already safely buried in her homemade pastry.

That little something extra was a little risque for something being sent to a simple friend, but she'd managed to get over her misgivings and stick it in anyway. She tried to think of it as kind of flirting. Not that she was particularly prone to flirting with anyone before now. She wondered if adding it to a Valentines gift was too much? Oh well, too late to change her mind.

Now that it was in place, there was no turning back without demolishing the cake to get to it. She shifted anxiously from foot to foot just thinking about it.

There was no question in her mind that her Valentines day offering would be well received even if he hated the cake and was insulted by the dog cookies. That impulsive little extra would see to it and squirming over her decision to send it was pointless. Kagome took a deep breath.

Taishou-san wouldn't find anything untoward or overly familiar about her gifts, if anything he was liable to be elated, even if she was trying not to have too many second thoughts. She hoped he would simply see it as harmless flirting being a consummate flirt himself, but somehow, she didn't think he would. Kagome sharply shook her head at her thoughts as she set down the camera and set about packing up the goodies. What was the worst that could happen? Taishou Sesshoumaru would get overly amorous and what? Molest her through the phone?

He didn't know where she was and therefore the repercussions were limited.

Carefully placing the loaded cake and store bought Gourmet dog cookies in a mailing box, Kagome resolved not to think about it until she heard Taishou Sesshoumaru-san's reaction. Then she'd do something about it. With that in mind, she picked up her camera and headed to her computer to sort through the pictures for the ones she wanted to send. After that, she had a note to write before sealing up the package and running down to the post office to send it out with the rest of her Valentines deliveries.

* * *

Sesshoumaru seldom received packages of any consequence at his apartment. Most of his mail went through a sorting facility at his father's office to fleece out the excess spam and various letters from would-be lovers. Then he would generally run over to pick it up from there. Very few people had his actual mailing address as his actual apartment number was known only to the building staff paid for their discretion.

So it was actually a surprise when the attendant in the lobby waved him over to the front desk upon his return from his morning classes. The lunch hour was approaching and traffic was starting to build up, but inside the residential building all was quiet so there was nothing standing in his way.

"Package for you, sir," the day time attendant announced, setting a sizable cardboard box on the desk beside the guest log. With quiet efficiency perfected by working with demanding wealthy residents, she quickly had him sign for it before returning to her other duties.

Upon brief inspection of the parcel, he found only his address written in increasingly familiar flowing characters and Sesshoumaru almost grinned like a small child spotting his brand new red bike just waiting for him. It was from his most elusive mate. Not wanting to risk opening it in public given what her last package larger than an envelop had contained, he somehow managed to board the elevator and waited for the arrival of the top floor without tearing it open with eager claws. He even kept off it long enough to unlock his front door. Then all bets were off as he dropped his bag with a fairly resonant thump and dashed for the kitchen, sharp claws already beginning to reveal the box's secretive innards.

The surprisingly decorative packing material began to rain down over his floor like confetti leaving a trail of pink and red over his white carpet on his way to the kitchen. Under the first layer of colored paper he found a quaint little Valentines card and he smiled.

Sesshoumaru had never suffered a lack of gifts or admirers on Valentines day before. In fact the slew of tokens he tended to receive had grown to be almost hazardous to his and the delivery worker's health. It was amazing how many people failed to remember the physical effects of chocolates on inu youkai. He was confident that his highly intelligent and considerate mate had sent him something he could enjoy, even if it came with nothing more than the memory stick and short cryptic note. But a box full of red and pink paper would hardly have been necessary for such a simple gift, so Sesshoumaru set them aside and began searching out any other contents amidst the colorful packing. He followed his nose to a package of bi-colored cookies that smelled mouth-wateringly of meat. Inside the plastic bag used to reseal the package was another short note explaining their presence, not that he needed an explanation.

Sesshoumaru was inu. Secretly, he believed that inu youkai were the reason gourmet dog cookies had first been introduced and then gained such wide spread popularity. No way were people buying them for common mongrel pets. Such simple creatures didn't have the wherewithal to properly appreciate the finer textures and flavor undertones as an inu did. Truth be told, Sesshoumaru loved the dog cookies though he seldom ever got to partake of them. He'd never risk public exposure of such a potentially problematic vice, so his only source was the off chance that someone thought to gift him some.

Prior to this, Inuyasha was his only supplier, and that only once a year on the anniversary of the elder inu's birth. What made it even stranger was that the hanyou was the only person ever to remember to give him anything for his birthday once he graduated from high school and prior to that every gift from his pack he'd received had been related to his future position as CEO of his father's company.

Sesshoumaru imagined the brat intended them as a goof as every year the gift was generally accompanied by various other pet paraphernalia along the lines of squeaky toys and leashes. Sesshoumaru responded in kind with dog kennels and spiked collars. Once, he'd even gifted Inuyasha with a muzzle. The hanyou had grumbled about it but, Sesshoumaru was certain, no significant feelings were hurt and no other member of the pack was aware of the exchange. At least, not to his knowledge.

His mate had intended no insult or second snide meaning. What he knew of her told Sesshoumaru that she wasn't the type. She'd intended it in good faith to be a thoughtful gift, something he could partake of with similar connotations to most gifts given and received on Valentines day. As such, the cookies tickled his fancy more than the ones from Inuyasha ever had.

There was still plenty of room left in the box, and after popping one of the bi-color cookies in his mouth, Sesshoumaru continued his investigation and found a saran wrapped cake with another note. Intrigued, he carefully worked at the plastic coating the soft cake, having never encountered a "Pineapple Upside Down Cake" let alone one with "buried treasure". The scent of it intrigued him, there was pineapple and brown sugar, but they weren't the most potent scents as his society had accustomed him to expecting of a product that is named for one ingredient. The pineapples were obviously included as they rested on the outside of one perfectly golden surface of the cake.

Sesshoumaru wasn't particularly partial to sweets and confections, but his mate had made this unusual temptation and he intended to treat it with care and respect, even if he hated the taste. She had put a lot of thought and took enough effort to make him something, no way he was going to ruin that needlessly. It was proof that she felt better about him than she had at the start. Or so he intended to believe.

To be truthful, he hadn't expected to receive anything from her for Valentines day. She had not expressed any real admiration or adoration. Or even simple liking. Certainly she talked to him, laughed at him, encouraged him in his amateur efforts in art, but that was all mostly impersonal on her part. It was like she was his therapist only without the high price tag and expensive leather couch. This was amazing confirmation that she was more than just a concerned ear.

Just the cookies, the pictures and the cake would have been enough for him. Hell just the cookies would have won his affections for life. Luckily he was already mated to the woman so he wouldn't be tempted to stray.

Still, his mate had sent him a little bit more. A buried treasure to sweeten his Valentine. Sesshoumaru had no idea what could be better than his secret pleasure, a homemade gift and a new set of pictures that allowed him a small insight to the ever mysterious personality of his mate. But there was more and he was more eager to find it than he was to sample her cooking or snack on more of the gourmet cookies that smelled so tantalizing.

Two steps took him to the cupboard to retrieve a plate large enough to hold the cake, one more brought him to the block that housed his set of knives. Choosing a suitable blade, he set to precisely slicing the round baked good into equal sized pieces. Sesshoumaru was dying to know what else was in the cake, what hidden ingredient her note had hinted at, but he held himself back from rendering his mate's creation to mere crumbs in his search. Miraculously he managed to miss nicking the plastic bag and its mystery contents.

In the end Sesshoumaru reduced a single piece of the cake to mere crumbs, his golden eyes intent on the shimmering white flashing out at him from the clear plastic. It was almost too much for him to open the little sac in the intended way, but he didn't dare risk damaging his prize. Perhaps this is what children felt when they found the small toys in candies and such. He'd never had the experience himself, but he knew – in a sort of detached way – that such was common.

The white material burst from the plastic the minute he managed to undo the closure and released the seal on the clear plastic bag. The first rush of air sent a cloud of scent out to engulf Sesshoumaru's senses and sent his eyes rolling back into his head. The physical reaction was faster than his ability to process just what exactly was perfuming the air.

Trapped in the fine threads of gossamer thin white cloth, was the scent of his far distant mate, but this was a more intense experience than her gifting him her previously worn bra at Christmas. That undergarment had been saturated in her scent and supplied the necessary aroma therapy to preserve his precarious hold on sanity. This was something else entirely.

Most clothing worn throughout the day was full of contact scents from casual brushes against various surfaces and people. His mates bra had been permeated with her sweet perfume, but it had also smelled of generic pollutants, antiseptic and the scents of what he assumed were her roommate, classmates, and a few professors. This was entirely different.

The ice white, thin, shimmery garment sprayed across his lap scented of nothing but his mate, something fruity for a body wash and something herbal for her hair. The aroma was potent, as though she had put it on immediately after bathing several times without washing it in between and removed it prior to encountering anybody else or leaving her home. It was a great deal more pure than her previous gift and the reaction the little garment received was reflective of that fact.

Sesshoumaru's knees had actually gone weak and given out under him before he had managed to completely identify what he held against him. When he landed on the floor, the white baby doll night gown had caught on the instant coat hanger strangled inside his trousers. The claws of one hand absently dug gouges into his pristine kitchen floor while the other aimed to scoop up the shimmery cloth seemingly clinging to that part of him that was desperate to spear into the woman that owned it. Within two minutes, he was desperately close to embarrassing himself on the floor.

A sudden, but expected alarm chimed from his pocket signaling the time to make his daily call to the author of his current state of physical unrest. Before his fuzzy brain could talk him out of it, Sesshoumaru had retrieved the phone and hit the send button on autopilot.

It rang twice before she picked up. "Hey, hold on just a minute," her beleaguered voice echoed across the world. It wasn't the first time she had stalled him after answering the phone. Occasionally, he caught her at work, which generally made for a lot of noise in the background and short conversation in the foreground. This time, the noise in the background was of a singular source. There was one male voice that responded to her request to excuse herself.

"But it's cold out there," was heard through the somewhat mumbled conversation that let him know his mate was stepping outside into the elements for privacy.

"I know it's cold out there," was her louder reply in response. "It's winter. I just need to stretch my legs. You just finish your movie and I'll be back before it's time to start the next one."

"Okay," her voice came louder in his ear. "Sorry about that. Brett-san's plans for a romantic dinner with his boyfriend kind of fell through this afternoon. Louis-san had a family emergency. His little sister got into a skiing accident and the hospital they shipped her to is out of her blood type."

"So her big brother raced to the rescue," Sesshoumaru finished for her.

"Pretty much," She agreed. "Their mother could have been a donor, but she's been undergoing Chemo therapy." Which naturally made donating a very bad idea for the mother.

"Hn," Sesshoumaru acknowledged the information. He was aware of the side effects of Chemo having recently helped her study such for one of her classes. What he didn't understand is why his mate wasn't sitting at home alone given the situation. "Could not Brett-san have attended his lover on this mission to save the life of the girl?"

"Well, it gets complicated," she answered with a halting sigh. "Louis-san hasn't actually told his family about his proclivity for other boys. It wouldn't be such a good thing to show up at a family emergency and drop such a bomb with boyfriend in tow."

"Hn," was all Sesshoumaru could respond with. He was having a difficult time thinking around the pain below his belly and one of his hands seemed to have a mind of its own. It kept rubbing slowly over the straining bulge in his pants regardless of what she talked about. It was slowly beginning to sink in just how much trouble he was in.

"Brett-san is pretty upset about it, you'd almost think it was _his_ little sister lying in critical condition somewhere," she mumbled to the side.

"Perhaps the situation is similar to him. His lover is away from his side, in need of support and comfort and he is denied the right to provide such," Sesshoumaru made the effort at coherent pertinent conversation. Probably not the wisest attempt he could have made since the subject could turn nasty very quickly given the similarities to his own situation where his mate would not acknowledge him in common society either. Granted, the similarity ended there. Brett and Louis were in a mutual relationship whereas he was forced to resort to self-gratification with articles of her discarded clothing because he had marked her against her will and seduced her chemically.

"Perhaps," she conceded tersely. "In any case, he's terribly depressed. And whenever Brett-san is feeling down he resorts to Rogers and Hammerstein movies and red wine."

"And this is bad?" he couldn't help inquiring. Seemed a harmless enough coping method to him and he doubted such would change with the full usage of his brain.

"Not if he's only feeling a little blue. But this kind of upset leads to a marathon of movies, which in turn increases his over all intake of alcohol." She chuckled dryly, "Last time he went for the marathon kind of cheering up, Brett-san landed in the hospital with alcohol poisoning. So I am chaperoning." There was now a minute regular clicking of her teeth together relaying just how cold she was becoming. "I'm making him mix his wine with fruit juice and drink a glass of water between each movie. I'm hoping I can talk him out of watching the remake of _State Fair_ as the next movie."

"Not a fan?"

"Not when we've just watched the original version already," She sniffed. "Beyond that, it's not so bad. Most of the movies are designed to make you feel better, with happy endings and jaunty tunes. Granted, part of the charm is lost when you don't know the meaning of most of the lines. I am proficient in English, but sometimes dialects throw me off and a strange turn of phrase fails to have the same connotations."

"Hn," Sesshoumaru was in trouble. It was valentines day, his mate had sent him a box full of goodies – including a nighty full of her clean scent – and her voice was in his ear. He wasn't going to last much longer and his brain couldn't convince his body that he wanted to.

"Oh, well," she breathed gently. "It's not like I had better plans for tonight than babysitting my depressed roommate anyway."

"No? You did not expect to hear from this Sesshoumaru upon receiving your package?" he tried to distract himself and her, though the endeavor was definitely impossible. It was growing even more impossible to hide the effect all this stimulus was having on his breathing. Much longer and she would be able to tell what he was doing.

"I expected to spend much of the evening in a theater watching movies after the library closed while Brett and Louis-san had their romantic interlude here. I wasn't really expecting your call until much later since the library and the theater require cellphones be turned off," she told him wryly. "I figured that would give you enough time to get certain things out of your system."

"Such as?" he had the gall to ask through gasping pants.

"You are in a state aren't you?" she observed blandly. Warning flags went up in his brain but the rest of him wasn't paying attention. His peak was too close. "Perhaps in future I'll be certain to leave my phone off the minute you receive a package from me to spare myself this nonsense."

Sesshoumaru would have protested her ever shutting down his only line of access to her but his release hit him right then and it took all he had to keep most of his growl of satisfaction to himself.

"Right," she concluded mildly. "I'm glad one of us enjoyed his Valentines day, now if you'll excuse me I have to go back to chaperoning my roommate."

The click and dial tone buzzing in his ear as he came down from his high left a hollow feeling in his chest. Somehow, despite the evidence of orgasm soaking into his pants, he felt cheated of his ecstasy as though it were empty without the accompaniment of her feminine version of the same.

Regardless of how he felt, it was finally beginning to sink in that he might possibly be in some serious trouble after this stunt. Sesshoumaru knew she wasn't too keen on the mere idea of phone sex and he'd just subjected her to a one-sided version of that without warning or her consent.

Would he never learn?


	9. The Fight

Kagome is in Canada. Brett Speaks English when talking to Kagome because she hasn't learned French. Sesshoumaru knows English, which is why he understood what Brett said to Kagome in the last chapter. English is spoken in many countries where it isn't particularly native. Given the time difference, he can assume Kagome is in Canada or the US, which wouldn't really help him find her because that is a lot of territory to cover. He knew this just based off the time difference before. the Time difference will vary based on the time of year, whether or not one is in a country that adopted the use of daylight savings time. Many countries didn't. It also depends on a how a country handled the geographic spread of their own people. India set the same time for their whole country despite the many different lines of Longitude that pass through it. Just an example.

Sesshoumaru's starting point based on the language used in the back ground and the time difference leaves him a slice of two to three lines of longitude the length of the Northern Hemisphere. But anything discovered via the phone is off limits for tracking Kagome down, he promised as such.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**The Fight**

The phone rang cheerily from her pocket as she placed the latest coffee concoction on the bar in front of her. Kagome sighed before stepping back for a minute to pull out her cell.

Technically, the company policy on employee cellphone usage while on duty was a firm rule that personal calls should be limited to breaks. Most of Kagome's coworkers turned theirs off to avoid the temptation of a sudden ring from a pocket or belt. Some left the little communication devices in the supplied lockers. Kagome did not and her supervisors and boss had suffered some difficulty bending the rules for her. At first.

But Kagome didn't take regular breaks and only had the one caller, and despite her refusal to jump at the chance to live in a gilded tower like a well valued pet, she would never not answer when he called. She just wasn't that cruel.

Kagome had only been teasing on Valentines day when she'd said she would turn off her phone for the library or the theater. Truth be told, the movie she'd been planning to go see had been out for months and would likely be empty besides her. As for the library, well, the librarians knew her well by now and kindly allowed her to keep her cellphone on that late in the evening on that night of the week as there were seldom any other patrons to disturb. She'd been teasing him, sort of.

Kagome really was upset that he'd chosen to pursue such an activity while on the phone with her. She'd expressed, on more than one occasion, her general disapprobation for any such activities. She really wasn't interested in phone sex. Listening to him jack off classified as a sexual act pursued while on the phone and therefore fell under the same heading as phone sex. Thus she didn't want to hear it.

That Taishou Sesshoumaru chose to do it anyway showed a distinct disrespect for her feelings on the subject. She'd let him slide with the innuendos, the teasing, and the continued attempts to persuade her differently because words were not something she had a problem with. But basically forcing her to hear the sounds and movements while he achieved masturbatory bliss was on par with their first real meeting, the night the inu had chemically seduced her and marked her without asking. Only it was worse, because now he knew better.

Kagome was pretty certain Taishou-san was aware of just how great her displeasure was with his actions. They hadn't shared a call longer than fifteen minutes since Valentines day nearly a month before.

He might have been able to write it off the first couple weeks as being due to mid terms and her desperate need to study, except Kagome had never hung up on him to study before. In fact, she usually let the inu help her study over the phone. Taishou-san worked hard to keep up with where she was in her classes just so he could quiz her effectively on her subjects. He was better than flash cards.

Kagome picked up the call before it could ring again and spoke briskly into the receiver. "Hey, I'm at work," despite being so brusque, she knew he wouldn't just hang up and let her get back to doing what she was paid for.

"Please, mate," Taishou-san begged from the other end of the line. "This Sesshoumaru is sor-"

Kagome grit her teeth and cut him off, "I really need to be getting back to work, Taishou-san."

Her first reaction to his behavior Valentines day truly had been incredulous disgust. However, under and after that feeling had lost some of it's heat she had found herself _minutely_ flattered that her little last minute addition to the cake had been so uncontrollably well received. Kagome, to her knowledge, had never before incited a male to the ungovernable urge to touch himself. Granted, she wasn't sure she wanted to know if she had and would rather have not really known now. Taishou-san usually had a gift for stating his desire and need in a more flattering way without being so crude. Given a choice, she'd much rather hear about how much he desired to do something than to actually hear him do it.

"Mate-" he tried again.

"We're really busy right now, I have to go," she interrupted him again and hung up. It wasn't a lie. It was a Friday night, and the academic crowd was hollering for more booze and java in an ever increasing din. It wasn't unusual for her to rush him off the phone on such a night, though there was a definite trend going on recently.

After the _brief_ moment in which she'd condescended to be flattered by his seemingly uncontrollable need for sexual gratification in her telephonic presence, Kagome had switched to angry dismissal. She was tired of hearing about it, tired of his insincere apologies. At the conclusion of the first week after the disastrous call, Taishou-san had seemingly caught on to her short tolerance for conversation with him after his bad behavior. His response was to start his apology as soon as possible.

Kagome snorted to herself as she set about making a Javalanche, one of the coffee bar's signature creations containing a combination of espresso, rum and topped with copious amounts of whipped cream and mocha sprinkles. She had to be careful to mix it right as she had orders for two dry and one wet Javalanche and each had a different espresso to rum ratio.

Kagome had no doubt that her inu _was_ sorry that she was upset with him but that wasn't what he was apologizing for. And that would be the only thing she could believe he really felt bad about. There was no way he was sorry for rubbing himself to nirvana in her ear. He'd enjoyed it too much, attempted to persuade her to let him talk them both to that same state too often, and vocally resented her insistence for their continued separation too vehemently.

He'd been doing rather well about treating her like a real person rather than some pet there only for his convenience. Then she made a leap in their relationship and he forgot everything but what he wanted to see.

True, Kagome hadn't been certain what kind of reaction she was going for by sending that particular nighty. It was the only one she'd ever owned that wasn't made of sturdier - and warmer – material. Perhaps that was why she sent it. She wasn't attached to it and of all her nightclothes, it could be condensed to the smallest volume. Which made it the most ideal for stuffing inside a cake. She'd seen it as a way of flirting, perhaps a little bit like encouraging him or rewarding him for good behavior. The little miko had thought it was slightly less embarrassing than having him ask for her underwear like he had in December.

With a shake of her head, Kagome finished up the Javalanches and moved on to the next order in her never ending back log of orders. She was beginning to think there had been some event or other that she wasn't aware of to draw in such a crowd. Normally, even their busiest days of the week never put her this far behind.

Her phone rang again, surprising her. Generally, when Kagome hung up, Taishou-san accepted that she wasn't going to be talking with him for at least a few hours. Occasionally, he would call twice in the same day, but never twice in the same hour. She'd always thought he had at least the basics down when it came to phone etiquette since he'd never been so obnoxious. She silenced the annoying electronic sound with a huff and got back to work. Something else to be peeved with him for.

No matter how neglected he felt, Taishou-san couldn't claim that she was ignoring him, even if she had kept all their conversations short for the last few weeks. She never lied about her reasons for needing to get off the phone, though she had omitted a few things. She always did have to study or fix dinner or work. Really. Since Valentines day she and her roommate had been working twice as hard to make up for the extra expenses put out to cover the various preparations made for their slightly disappointing plans. The fact that most had not come to a satisfactory conclusion didn't mean the expenses suddenly evaporated into thin air.

Brett-san had really put a lot of effort into his romantic dinner plans. Effort and money a med student could barely afford. He'd been eating little more than ramen ever since despite Kagome's regular offers to share the bounty of her scholarship. Her food was paid for – within reason – by the school, and they seemed to think she should be eating a great deal more than she did. Kagome had tried to convince him that feeding him was actually to her benefit. Really, it was because Kagome lost her appetite at the mere smell of the cheap stuff he called ramen.

Either way, Brett was working as much as he could to help make up for his splurging. And whenever he worked, Kagome did too because the opportunity was there. It was one of the most productive ways to fill up her hours. Her advisors were a bit against her working so much and she was getting quite a bit of flak over the situation. So long as her studies remained unaffected by the so-called neglect, she refused to care. Besides, she could use the money about as much as her roommate.

Taishou-san on the other hand, well he wasn't much of a factor in her decision making when Kagome wasn't so perturbed with him. She was more than tired of being reminded of what upset her in the first place, which happened every damn call as soon as he opened his mouth to apologize. It had already gotten to the point where she simply couldn't let him finish the attempt any more, she hadn't the patience for it. It was nice that he understood she was upset, but a simple, insincere 'I'm sorry' wasn't going to take her ire out of the situation. It was more a sop to his conscience than anything else and she was tired of it.

Kagome was more than ready to just drop the whole thing. It was done with, over with. It had been handled badly on all sides and now simply needed to be left in the past. She obviously shouldn't have sent him that stupid satiny thing in the first place. Couldn't they just move on?

Apparently not without explicitly hashing out the details first, Kagome wanted to growl at the reality as she threw mocha sprinkles at her latest order a bit more violently than necessary. It wasn't that she was angry, or even particularly annoyed. She was just frustrated. With herself.

Kagome had a terrible tendency to over-analyze everything that didn't immediately make sense to her.

Back in the days following her unwilling marking, amidst her efforts to secure her safe exit from Tokyo, Kagome had rehashed her first and only sexual encounter until she was sick of the remembered smell and pain stabbed at her brain from the strain of attempting to unveil more memories of it. She'd tried to figure out if it was a direct effect of Taishou Sesshoumaru's courting toxins that had prevented her ability to remember their activities or whether it was a result of the chemical over saturating her senses that did it. Kagome's memory wasn't precisely perfect, but she couldn't imagine that such an important event hadn't been firmly imprinted upon her brain as the encounter unfolded without some explanation.

Every attempt to figure out the exact effects of the burning, intoxicating mist had been accompanied by speculation as to why the youkai in question had ultimately sought to bind her to him. The eternal question of why had plagued her to distraction, interfering with time meant to be spent bonding with the family she was leaving a world behind her. Why a youkai of his social standing and proclivity for womanizing would suddenly be so enamored of her lacking sexual prowess as to mark her for keeps? It hadn't made sense.

After the courtesy call, Kagome had understood that instinct and selfishness had been the cause. Much as she would have preferred to believe his romantic nonsense about instinct being a reasonable analogy for instant love, she knew better. Instant attraction, she could accept. Lust didn't need a reason beyond the biological. Love, the sort that lasted, required a great deal more than instinct or attraction and not even the inu himself could argue with her point.

Her phone rang with Taishou's third attempt to garner her attention just as the supervisor stepped behind the bar that kept the customers out of her personal space. Kagome pointedly silenced the ringer. Two calls in one hour were unreasonable, three was grounds for a heated scolding, especially since she'd already told him she was busy.

"Kagome, Brett," Matthew called to them, almost yelling to make himself heard at the other end of the bar where her roommate was preparing drinks. "It's come to the attention of the management that you two have been all but maxing out your part time hours for the last month."

"Is that a problem?" Kagome asked carefully as her hands continued to work over a Java Mamba for one of the wait staff.

"If it was just me in charge, I wouldn't care," the junior supervisor shrugged with an apologetic grin, "But if you guys don't cut back on work, the big wigs will be forced to reclassify you as full time with all that entails. Neither of you wants that with how your class schedules are set up right now."

"But it's just temporary," Kagome protested.

"The boss doesn't care," Brett snorted elegantly as he came closer.

"'fraid so," Matthew sighed. "So as of right now, both of you are off for the next three days. And I mean right now. Get out of here unless you're buying drinks."

Kagome glanced up at her broke roommate sympathetically. "What do we do now?"

"You heard the man, girly," Brett shrugged, escorting her out from behind the bar and through the throng of caffeinated boozers. "We go home. In the meantime, maybe you could answer your phone."

Kagome sniffed petulantly, "He's being obnoxious. It can wait until we get home."

"Are you ever going to tell me who these mystery calls are from?" he sounded a bit hurt that she absolutely refused to talk about her special phone. Brett was not above using emotional black mail to get what he wanted.

"I haven't even told my mother," she patted her much taller roommate soothingly on the shoulder while pointedly refusing to feel guilty over her refusal to disclose any details. "Don't take it personally."

"That doesn't make me feel better," Brett sniffed. "You're supposed to tell your roommate the sorts of things you wouldn't dare tell your mama. It's because I'm a guy isn't it?"

"I honestly haven't told anybody yet. Even _he_ doesn't know who I am," she chuckled dryly. "My anonymity is about the only reason I'm still able to do what I'm doing. Telling people about it would just ruin all my efforts to develop hanyou medicine."

"What if I swear never to tell a soul?" he wheedled in a fairly whiny tone.

"His family is a very powerful, wealthy one. If it was found out that you withheld information regarding who I was, it would not go well for you either," Kagome shook her head. "Besides, I'm not happy with him right now."

"I'd picked up on that much. A happy lover does not rush her beau off the phone," Brett declared solidly. Kagome wasn't certain if there was a hint of perceived insult in his tone. The gay male had a tendency to take offense over any allusion to a lack of perception or observation on his side. She hadn't meant to upset him, but the whole conversation was an uncomfortable subject for the secret miko.

Kagome wasn't about to tell him precisely why she was so peeved at her so-called beau and she was growing exceedingly weary of Brett attempting to extract information about the situation from her. "You're as bad as he is! We are not 'lovers' as you put it."

The look her roommate gave her was more than a little disbelieving. "One does not call a mere friend everyday, roommie, at least not one you never see and certainly not one you insist on speaking to in private," Brett dismissed her assertion out right. "And whatever you're mad at him about is obviously not being resolved. Face it, girly, you're just gonna have to break down and have a fight to get over it."

Kagome sighed, but conceded that her roommate was probably right. Fine, the little miko was more than ready to get her game face on. Her decision was made just in time as once again her phone began to ring.

"Make sure you nail him for this little string of rowdiness too," Brett gave the singing device a dirty look. "Think you can make it home from here without getting mugged?" The question was facetious as their building was in sight at the corner of the next well-lit street. "I'm going to see if my Louis-baby is up for a little lovin' given this sudden excess of free time."

"You're the one who insists on staying with me as if I can't walk home on my own. You have fun, tell Louis-san I said hi," Kagome waved him off before taking out her keys and answering her phone. "Taishou-san, if you're not on death's door step, bleeding profusely or suffering from some unexplained disease that a multitude of practicing physicians can't identify you are in serious trouble."

"Mate," Taishou-san attempted to stall her scolding.

"Two calls within fifteen minutes of each other is just plain silly when you knew I was busy. Three calls in the span of thirty minutes is ridiculous and four should have you feeling incredibly guilty for being so unnecessarily demanding," She informed him as she climbed the stairs up to her shared apartment. "Not even my incurably social brother has such bad manners."

"Mate, please," he seemed to whimper.

"Congratulations," Kagome scowled at the darkened hall way, making mental note that she needed to file a work order with the land lord to get it fixed, "You now have my undivided attention although, you may soon wish you'd left off for a bit longer. Now we get to have that argument you've been asking for."

"This Sesshoumaru has in no way been striving to cause an argument with you, mate. I realize that the events of Valentines day were in bad taste and entirely my fault and have been sincerely trying to apologize -"

Kagome snorted. "You aren't sorry you did it, and don't insult me by trying to play it like you were. You may regret that I got upset by it, but if the chance were to arise a second time, you'd do it again."

"This Sesshoumaru would prefer for you to join him and enjoy it. It is not as satisfying without you," he answered quietly, confusing her utterly. What on earth could he mean by that? "And I would in future strive to only do such things with your knowing consent. What I did was the same as when we mated, almost. You were right to be upset."

Kagome was mildly surprised, but the bulk of her bad feelings over the whole issue dissipated with his admission that he wished to have her consent. It was the first time he had demonstrated remorse over taking her choice from her. Kagome wasn't some raging feminist, but her life should be directed by her choices, not somebody else's. By the same token, she tried really hard not to take the choices of others from them. "I – Thank you."

"Mate?" he was the one to sound confused.

"That is a very big pet peeve of mine, people making choices for me," she told him sheepishly.

"Hn, this Sesshoumaru has become aware," he acknowledged with a dry chuckle and Kagome couldn't help but smile. She'd certainly made her point with it after all.

"Finally!" she couldn't help teasing him though. If he'd been paying attention they wouldn't be talking about it now. "You are slow."

"Indeed," the nuances in his voice had her convinced he was smirking with good-natured humor. Abruptly his tone took on a serious quality, "Mate, this Sesshoumaru intended to ask something of you."

"And you thought harassing me over the phone was the best way to get me in the mood to do you favors?" Kagome couldn't resist smirking herself, though she was curious and no longer as upset as she was. "Lets hear it, Taishou-san. What was the cause behind your determination to be heard today?"

Obviously choosing to move past her scolding, he began his opening arguments as if negotiating some official business proposal. "The past few weeks, this Sesshoumaru has been working on the reciprocal gift for white day as your gracious gift deserves. Today, I realized that despite the fact my gift will not be ready by the fourteenth, I would not have a way to get it to you regardless. Your strident insistence towards continued anonymity makes it rather difficult for an instinctively affectionate youkai to fulfill those instincts as my nature demands."

"I see your problem, but I don't know how you think we can fix it," Kagome conceded. She had read about inu pack relationships. Healthy inu were prone to excessive gifting during courtships and both sexes could be openly demonstrative to varying degrees. They'd sort of skipped the courtship phase but that didn't mean he wasn't driven by the same urges. Mated couples carried on the same courting behaviors for decades after finalizing the relationship. She just hadn't expected it.

"It is not an immediate problem, but this Sesshoumaru felt it was best to address the issue now so that when your white day gift is completed you can receive it."

"Why don't you just let me buy something like we did in December?" Kagome inquired. He'd given her leave to use a pre-paid credit card number on-line to purchase her camera and subsequent memory sticks.

"Because this Sesshoumaru is making your gift. And money cannot convey the same sentiments as a gift created for you by your mate." Kagome wanted to roll her eyes, though she was curious about what he would make for her. "Besides, this Sesshoumaru is also planning a special, unique gift for the anniversary of our mating."

Kagome glowered at her roommate's Marilyn Monroe print in lieu of the baka inu that would celebrate marking her against her will. "There's nothing to celebrate about that."

"Au contraire mate, for it is the date this Sesshoumaru was gifted with awareness of you. Those events, though not what we would have wished to happen, mark an abrupt and important change in our lives. I believe those changes, at least on my side, have been for the better despite my continued frustration with your distance. As such, I will celebrate it and hope that you will someday come to see it the same as I," his growling voice rolled across the world for her to hear. "In any case, the issue is how to make it so you can receive this Sesshoumaru's gifts without giving away your location. I have considered the problem seriously and believe that a solution _is_ possible."

"Well, lets hear it then," Kagome skeptically sought to find the point of this discussion quickly. Taishou-san didn't usually get so far off track, wandering down tangents was more her style. She might have teased him about it if she wasn't so annoyed.

"A post office box," he sounded pleased with himself.

Kagome, on the other hand, was ready to blow up. "A P.O. Box? Are you crazy? How is that not compromising the secrecy of my current location?"

"It is simple, mate," he tried to calm her down. "It doesn't have to be near where you live and if you could stay hidden in Tokyo, even sharing the same University campus as this Sesshoumaru then surely you can do the same while maintaining a mail box half a world away. You could go to the next town over, supply them with this Sesshoumaru's address as a billing address and use that card, or I could provide you with a new one."

Kagome thought about it beyond the gut reaction to refuse. A post office box was a risk regardless of where she set it up. Her university was set in a sizable town on its own, so giving him an address wouldn't give him her location if she set it up near the school. Except for the times when she went to check her mail. Kagome wasn't stupid. Even setting a box up in an adjacent town provided the same risk.

"Please mate," Taishou-san whined. "This Sesshoumaru will promise you the same assurances as were provided in regards to the phone. Allow me this, it is a small thing. Give me an outlet, a way to touch you across distances, please."

"Fine, I'll look into it. Same rules apply," Kagome relented with a sigh. "You attempt to find me, I pick up and leave everything behind."

"Thank you, mate," he nearly purred in her ear. For some reason she felt unaccountably pleased to have given in over this.

Hours later, as Kagome got ready for a long soak in the tub, she allowed herself to admit her real reason for giving in was curiosity over what her purported white day gift was going to be. She had received a number of gifts over the years in response to her own gifts of chocolate, but most were generic store bought standbys. No thought or effort ever seemed to be warranted when gifting her anything. Even her little brother got her the same gift for White day every year, something edible, sweet, and cheap. She loved Souta, but the gifts were unequal.

When he got really into soccer a few years back, Kagome made soccer balls out of white and dark chocolate. The following year, she created a full scene with goal posts and goalie. The year after that, he'd discovered girls and Kagome had made a scene where Souta and his flame were portrayed passing a soccer ball back and forth (the girl was on the girl's team at school at the time). In return, Kagome had three boxes of strawberry pocky and a bashful hug.

Her classmates, the ones who had received chocolates, had all received equally thoughtful confections for which Kagome received desk calenders, stationary, one set of health shoes (that kid was always a little weird) and a slew of journals. All of which she'd struggled not to feel disappointed about. It wasn't that Kagome expected or really wanted to receive payback for her chocolates, but if they were going to take the time to do it, couldn't they have made it worth their effort and hers?

Which is why she was so curious as to what Taishou-san's gift would be. He struck her as someone who would put a lot of thought into what gifts he gave. She hoped he was. It would be interesting to see what he had picked up on from talking with her over the past several months – almost a year.


	10. Anniversary

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Anniversary**

Sesshoumaru stood staring out the panoramic window in his bedroom. Sometimes when he stood in this specific spot the inu got flashes of his mate against that same window. He could almost see her, feel her, smell her at the edges of his perception. It was strangely cathartic in almost a masochistic, mostly pathetic sort of way. At least, that's how Sesshoumaru chose to perceive it. He really had so very little of his mate to hold onto.

Most days, Sesshoumaru kept from this particular occupation as he had a tendency to forget all other obligations once he settled into it. He could stand there for hours and only the drastic changing of night and day could rouse him from his contemplation of remembered oil impressions on the streak free glass.

Today was special. Today, Sesshoumaru had skipped all his classes without notifying his demanding father secure in the knowledge that he'd miss nothing important. It was the Friday before finals week. There were nothing but reviews to be missed. And keeping his hooky intentions from his alpha simply insured that Sesshoumaru would have the entire day to remember that this day last year he had mated.

Granted, not all of the remembrance was pleasant, but for all the things he had learned of his mate since then, he couldn't find it in himself to regret how things had panned out.

The female, with her chosen goals and determination, would shortly be raised to worldwide renown and respect. Then she would be in high demand and widely courted by a number of males. That Sesshoumaru had caught her before all of that was actually quite a lucky thing. She may insist that instinct did not look for compatibility beyond genetics, but his mate was quite a better catch than he'd ever imagined could be possible.

True there were a number of well respected females in the upper echelons of class and society, but few made it there through their own efforts. She would.

But it would take time. And if he were to track her down and stand beside her now, no one would believe she did it on her own. She hadn't left him to insure she received proper recognition for her work and dedication, for in that one aspect she had been completely correct. Being the mate of the Taishou heir would have circumvented any chance of her achieving any goal outside simply being the female on his arm at formal social functions. Taishou Hiroyuki would have seen to that and Sesshoumaru as he had been then wouldn't have thought there was anything wrong with that. The male he had been a year ago had never known a woman could be more than what he had seen and what he had seen was his mother and Izayoi. Izayoi had been a hime before his father had marked her. She had never desired or been encouraged to look beyond her duties as a royal. Her job was to be seen in all the right places and to maintain the family home.

Sesshoumaru's mother...well her ambitions all related to her position with his father. It never occurred to him that she wanted it that way or if she had wanted anything else in her life. The inu bitch had just always been there. As for the young inu's own personal experiences with females, his mate was the only one he'd apparently ever bothered to learn about.

On the one hand, it made learning about her more interesting. Everything his mate was went counter to everything he'd ever known of females. Exploring the nuances of her personality, as slow going as it was, filled his life with new revelations in every exchange of words. Sometimes, Sesshoumaru was willing to acknowledge their relationship probably wouldn't have had a chance of becoming so in depth if the situation had unraveled in any other fashion.

By the same token, it left him wondering just how he was ever going to grow any closer to his contrary and determined mate. She was keeping him at a distance he couldn't understand and it had nothing to do with being a world away.

Oh she would occasionally let him know what hijinks she got up to, but in a strange way, it wasn't enough for Sesshoumaru. He wanted to know why she did things, how she reasoned out the actions she took. He wanted to know what experiences she'd had to go through that shaped her into the woman he now claimed as mate. She never discussed her feelings with him and her opinions were just as mysterious as her name still remained.

But today wasn't about what he didn't know.

A gentle ringing called his attention from his personal haze. It was the special phone he kept for the only number that called was his mate.

"Hello Taishou-san," her sweet voice chirped in his ear when he answered.

"Happy Anniversary mate," Sesshoumaru replied warmly.

After a year of talking on the phone he had grown comfortable with his ability to interpret her pauses and the one that followed his salutation clearly indicated she was struggling to refrain from bringing up their previously discussed argument on the subject. Sesshoumaru could allow, though he was unhappy to do it, that she might not view their mating anniversary in the same positive light that he did but he was determined that eventually she would. Even if she didn't though, it was still an important date to be remembered. "I got your package," she replied after a quiet sigh echoed down through the connection. "Picked it up this morning before most of my classes." She chuckled briefly, "though I almost left it there when I found out how bulky it was. It was something of an adventure carrying it around with me all day."

Sesshoumaru strained to arrest the sudden desire to loose a disgruntled growl. Just because he had felt comfortable skipping his classes, reviews for final exams in subjects he had no real care for and his mate did not was no reason to sulk. She was studying subjects that meant a great deal to her, each a stepping stone towards that goal passion drove her to. And to be honest, he cared more for the classes she took than any of his own subjects. "It must have been quite a sight," he replied instead. The package was a little on the large side. Certainly larger than any package he'd received from her so far. "Have you opened it yet?"

"Not yet, I just got home," she replied absently. "It's easier to lug around a sealed package than one that's been opened and has stuff falling out of it."

This time he allowed the sounds of relief their escape into the ether of cell phone communication. Part of his gift, the part meant for their anniversary, could have drawn a negative reaction from his mystery mate if Sesshoumaru weren't present-at least on the phone-during the revealing.

Naturally his perceptive little mate picked up on the sound, "Should I be worried about the contents of this package?" she asked blandly.

"It is not that mate," Sesshoumaru assured her gently. "This Sesshoumaru promises there is nothing inappropriate contained therein. Open your package."

"All right then," she accepted his word, a show of trust that warmed the inu disproportionately. The rustling sounds of the female moving about her far distant and never seen apartment, presumably looking for something to open the brown mailing box with. A moment later the sharp slide of some blade through the packing tape rasped into his ear. The sound of paper shuffling preceded a very bolstering gasp of pleased awe. "Oh, Taishou-san, it's beautiful!" He knew she'd appreciate it. Choosing her seemingly favored tree to recreate in ink had been an easy choice and he'd had plenty of angles and images to choose from as she sent one to him of the same tree with every memory stick. Sesshoumaru planned to create a different set for each season to gift her on white days to come.

Sesshoumaru was rather pleased with how his white day gift had turned out. "You have the originals of this Sesshoumaru's drawings and the copies of developed photos you took. I have the original developed photos and copies of the drawings, mate." The meaning for the division being what it was he had no intention of explicitly detailing. Someday all of the originals would be reunited when they as mates reunited.

"I had no idea you would be so good at it when I suggested you try it," she breathed. "They look just like my pictures."

"Hn, this Sesshoumaru's sensei was quite impressed also." He admitted mildly with pride. "And her partner claims you have a good eye for one so new to photography."

"Flattery, Taishou-san, will get you nowhere," she declared in amusement and the inu couldn't help but smirk at his reflection in the window before him. "This is the best white day gift I've ever received."

And that practically had him rumbling in pleased satisfaction. Sesshoumaru had no doubt his mate had received numerous white day gifts as she was the type to gift chocolate to many come valentines. He was surprised though, that his would be best as he doubted her sentiments were strong enough to overwhelm everything and everyone else she'd ever known. "Truly there must have been other gifts worth more than this Sesshoumaru's meager efforts."

"Normally, I might be inclined to defend my friends, but in this they have all proven decidedly inept. I don't give out gifts for Valentines in order to receive something on White day, but if they feel like doing it I'd rather they'd take into account just who they are trying to gift when deciding what to give. Stationary is not exactly a universal gift, for I have never had a use for it." she explained mildly. "I did expect more than stationary from you when you insisted upon gifting me, but I didn't expect this. This is a pleasant surprise."

"Hn, this Sesshoumaru had never had cause to give anything on white day before, but stationary was never even thought of," he chuckled. He couldn't see his mate as having much use for fancy paper, cards, or envelops. Not now nor at any point in her younger years. She wasn't a socialite and someday, when she ran a practice of her own, she'd probably have her communications printed out professionally just to save her time for more important pursuits. At least his gift could be hung up on a wall in her future office and look professionally artistic enough not to seem out of place. Although, he was just thinking of that now, his true motivation was a desire to tie them together in some definable way that could be seen and touched and understood.

Despite his seeming popularity, he'd never had cause to seriously reciprocate any of the Valentines gifts he'd received in the past. Gifts likely to make him ill simply didn't garner a response from him, or rather, not one his many admirers might have liked. And he certainly hadn't cared how they'd felt at his lack of response.

Sesshoumaru recalled one year when his brother had chosen to prank him by sending him a dozen roses for valentines day. The cloying scent had nauseated him for as long as it took to clean the scent from his room as he had still been living with the pack at the time. Inuyasha's return gift the following month had been a rather odiferous bouquet of lilies that had knocked the brat out for hours and prevented anyone from coming near to dispose of it.

That was actually the incident that had led to Sesshoumaru being exiled to his own apartment, now that he thought of it. His sire had dressed him down quite ruthlessly in front of the whole pack and told the press it was part of his grooming to become a successful heir. The whole episode had irritated him greatly as Inuyasha had pulled worse pranks and certainly more often, without even a mild scolding but Sesshoumaru dare retaliate once in kind...

"Thank you," she repeated warmly, the inflection toasting his insides with a different sort of pleasure than he was used to associating with females and drawing him away from his errant train of thought. With another ambiguous rustle of packing paper, Sesshoumaru assumed she set the framed art aside to delve deeper into the box.

This was the moment he'd been so anxious for. Sesshoumaru was a bit nervous about this second gift, the one meant for their anniversary. As she'd repeated more than once, he didn't know her well enough to take genuine comfort from her or for their mating to be a successful one. With this in mind, Sesshoumaru had been trying to think of ways to better build the sort of relationship he craved through experiences and gifts that would both let her know he was listening and learning about her but also convey things about himself.

In essence, he'd decided that, considering how their connection was created, he would court her in the traditional way inu youkai wooed females they had never physically met. That had been the idea behind his gift for their anniversary, anyway.

"I see why you asked if I had opened this now," she murmured. "Your note seems rather strident that I call you before opening this next gift."

"Hnn, this gift is for our anniversary, mate." Sesshoumaru acknowledged a growing nervousness squeezing at his insides. "The chest is made of cedar and the depictions carved across the top were etched with the use of this one's own toxins. Before you open it, this Sesshoumaru feels he should explain the background behind it."

Carefully clearing his throat, Sesshoumaru set about introducing his gift. "In Feudal days, when youkai were constantly forced to defend their claimed territories from being encroached upon by warring human factions. There was little time for young eligible males and females to meet each other and perform the necessary steps of proper courtship. The solution for most species was to develop a long distance method of doing so. Many were modeled after human stand in weddings and arranged marriages with females, sight unseen. Naturally with youkai, things were required to be a bit more complex and most scent dependent species simply required something to replace previous rites that slowly built up the necessary markings and familiarities."

"Formerly, all that was required was an increasing amount of time spent between youkai pairs in close proximity, a certain level of touching and closeness to build up bonds and ties. But such was not possible at that time. So the use of scent boxes became quite popular."

Scent boxes were actually older than the tradition of using them in courting, but the simple cedar box of perfumes had been expanded upon and enriched for its newer purpose. Sesshoumaru had given much thought to the presentation of his scent box to his mate. He could have gone an extremely ornate route as nowadays boxes could be found made of everything from simple pine to cherry wood and further into even ivory. The various bottles could be made in plastic, glass or crystal. The traditional scent boxes were seldom used in everyday courting anymore so most were given as a display of wealth or kept in museums and the like.

Put simply, despite the fact that Sesshoumaru had decided to court his mate, he'd really had no practical idea of how to do so. All his experiences with the fairer sex had been about achieving quick and easy access to their private parts. So he'd fallen back on tradition as taught to him by his occasionally senile grandsire. "All of the scented unguents and tinctures contained there in were created from this Sesshoumaru. Their purpose in courting is to help you to feel comfortable and safe surrounded in and stained by my scent. There is a tincture designed to help you develop a tolerance for this Sesshoumaru's more caustic poisons." There was also one that had side effects that would leave the female aroused and desperate for fulfillment too, though that was not the original intent of its inclusion.

He heard the scrape of wood on wood and deduced that she had popped the lid off the box to explore the contents. "You were very detailed in your instructions on application and doses," she marveled neutrally. "Except for..."

There was one solution he'd carefully left blank except for instructions to call him before use. "This Sesshoumaru should warn you mate, because you are so adamant about being allowed your free choice, the contents of a scent box are extremely addictive. In former days, the contents were applied before witnesses as soon as mating arrangements were solidified to ensure the female could not be offered to some other male before consummation could happen. The use of such laid scent claim that any male could sense but it also made the female more unresponsive to the courting of any not her betrothed with the exception of one." He took a deep breath before taking the plunge towards this final bit of explanation. "The last one was specifically applied to the inside of the female only after her sexual maturity by the supplied applicator and often caused such an increase in sexual readiness she wouldn't care who she took to quench her needs." Which is why this particular unguent was always applied by a body slave of the same sex.

"Is that why you left off directions on the sheet?"

"This Sesshoumaru was uncertain of how you would receive the gift if it was merely written out," the inu replied uneasily turning to rest his shoulders against the sun warmed glass. "Tradition had this solution applied with an available female attendant to soothe away the side effects."

"In other words, to sex up the recipient and prevent the female from dishonoring her mate by taking another male," his mate declared baldly.

Sesshoumaru controlled his sudden urge to wince. "I wanted to warn you of the side effects should you chose to use the contents of this gift. My intent was more to indicate a desire for courting long distance than actual use, but if you do use this last piece I would ask that you only do so with me as present as can be through a phone."

"I suppose I can understand that," she agreed to his relief.

They remained silent on the phone for a few minutes before she surprised him with a question. "If exposure to these various products made from a courting male is addictive, wouldn't the female sexual attendant also become addicted?"

Sesshoumaru cringed, this was a rather questionable facet of history that he had never approved of. "Yes."

"So what happened to her after the mating if she was already addicted to her mistress's male?"

"The situation was dealt with in a variety of ways at different points of history. Initially, the body slave was simply allowed to die from her addiction as usually the position was filled by a lesser youkai or a human of little to no other value. Later, the second female was offered to the male after the witnessed mating rites were performed and the claimed female had been properly marked. Youkai rutting can be a bit violent and it was decided that the first rut in the house of the female's family would not be so. No parent desires to see, hear or sense violence being delivered upon their daughter at any time. As a reward for withholding their full desires, the male would often return to his assigned rooms to find the addicted attendant trussed up and left to the tender mercies of the male to whom she was addicted. Custom allowed for the male's use of that female until she died either from his use or age."

Sesshoumaru sometimes really hated history and the depravity that threaded through it for no reason. "Towards the end of that particular period, when the use of comely human females had become the custom, a number of males would mark the human slave and keep both females, neither of whom could argue about it because the addiction was so strong."

"That's disgusting," she opined.

"This Sesshoumaru concurs," he agreed. "It was considered a great dishonor for the female to be left unmated in place of her body slave, a mark of her inability to please her betrothed male. Though, it is more likely the male was disrespectful, greedy and far too enamored of using his females."

There was that careful pause again as of his mate struggling with herself about bringing up a much belabored argument already had and settled. "This Sesshoumaru may not have gone about selecting his mate in the most respectful and courteous of ways, but I would never disrespect you by rutting with another female whether I have your permission or not." He didn't really need her to say it to know what she'd been thinking.

"I didn't say anything," she hummed innocently.

"You were thinking of it," he teased her. "And this Sesshoumaru's sire did not mate his female's body slave either. He truly was mated to Izayoi, who was a hime, years before this Sesshoumaru's dam ever entered the picture."

"I don't know why you're so defensive over you family," she commented. "You are clearly not your father so comparison beyond your shared species is hardly possible."

Sesshoumaru relaxed at her statement. He lived his days under the shadow of his sire, being compared to the elder's business acumen, exploits, and personality. He never came up short in his opinion because there simply was no way to properly compare the two. Taishou Hiroyuki stood in a class he'd made all his own and Sesshoumaru was subconsciously working towards doing the same, one that would not include his father. He wasn't as well received by some of his father's business associates, but basic apathy over the matter kept him from caring.

"What are the side effects of the rest of it, Taishou-san?" her calm voice sailed into his ear. "You only talked about this one."

"The others aren't as severe and likely to get this Sesshoumaru in trouble again," she chuckled mildly on the other end and he couldn't help the minute smile that ghosted over his lips. "The purpose of the others is to develop a certain level of reliance on the presence of that scent. The ultimate result is that the female learns to associate feelings of safety, security, and a modicum of affection with the scent and the one who carries it. A sudden removal of that scent will produce anxiety and varying levels of fear. It can be gotten over with time and nothing in the box will forcefully produce feelings of love, but the species' experiences through time have taught that finding comfort in a mate's presence can mean more than the presence or absence of love."

"And what do you think?" his mate asked pointedly.

"I never expected more than to take comfort in my mate and to occasionally pursue the passion experienced between two so joined adults," he replied blandly. Sesshoumaru may have wanted more, but he'd never really thought it would happen for him even before his father had taken the right to chose from him.

"You're not completely unlovable, Taishou-san. Nobody is," she insisted, though how she jumped from what he said to that, he didn't know. Females had strange logic, and his female's mind worked through even stranger trails. At least he could claim she was exceptional.

"The point, dear mate, was that this Sesshoumaru did not expect to find love in a mating of my father's choosing. His aim would be to achieve the maximum political benefit for the pack, his business, and his allies. No where in the equation would my preferences have been consulted." Sesshoumaru was careful to leave out the bitterness he still felt over the subject. He'd prevented that outcome for the one he was currently living and he didn't want her to think he was bitter to have wound up with her. She was probably a better outcome than he could have expected, certainly a higher quality of woman than his net should have caught and more than he had ever deserved.

"Mating lasts for a long time, Taishou-san," she murmured ponderously on the other end of the phone. "Who's to say if affection wouldn't have grown into the relationship over the period of time you would have been stuck together?"

"Perhaps affection might have, but affection is not love, mate. And there is a very good chance that while this Sesshoumaru would have intended to start out monogamous, in such a situation; with the inu proclivity towards greater sexual appetite, who is to say it would have lasted. There is also the added likelihood that this Sesshoumaru's arranged mate would not have been inclined to faithfulness from the start. After all, it is difficult to respect a male whose father had to arrange a mating," the inu pointed out whether the arranging was done without the male's consent was immaterial.

True, inu ran to the possessive side of relationships, unwilling to share, but that didn't stop infidelity on the female's part from happening. Marking certainly made it so that no youkai male of lesser strength would touch the female, but concealing make up and inferior senses could induce a human male to go where others feared to tread. And there were historical examples where a female arranged into mating had gone into it while in collusion with a disassociated male intending to both cheat and ultimately betray their mate. Sesshoumaru was such a male as to take infidelity of his female as permission to go that route himself, and would have done so immediately, forever to forsake his mate's bed afterward, making it a permanent breech.

"You're very pessimistic, you realize that, right?" she pointed out.

"No mate, I am realistic. You realize that any youkai female that would allow herself to enter into an arranged mating in this day and age has ulterior motives. And a human who did so is either overly biddable, making her a pet that this Sesshoumaru must look after like a child, or incredibly greedy and shallow. Can you see a solid, fulfilling relationship developing from such material? This Sesshoumaru does not believe in miracles," he scoffed.

"So instead, you went looking for women you could seduce into sex – indicating either that same shallowness and greed since they didn't require an actual relationship prior to laying with you, or a weak will, making them easily biddable," she chuckled. "In essence, you wound up with the same type of materials to build a mating on."

"Perhaps," Sesshoumaru conceded. "Except it would have been this Sesshoumaru's choice and not his sires, and none going into it expected to be granted such a long term commitment once my reputation was established. Though you are the only one who didn't want it once formed."

"It's a moot point, Taishou-san, given that you already marked me," she declared, a hint of smugness filling the words.

"And I could not have caught me a better mate if I had tried," he returned just as smug. His proud, near feral grin reflected back to him in the glass. What other female would be inclined to argue with him, tease him and provoke him into trying new things?


	11. Of Zombies and Manners

Several Readers have expressed confusion over the time gaps. I'm not very explicit because I trust in your ability to pick up clues, but I suppose I can give a truncated calendar.

Chapter 1-4 take place from mid to late April.

Chapter 5 occurs in May.

Chapter 6 takes place in late November. Kagome is wrapping gifts, but she has to mail them out early if she wants them to arrive in time for the holidays. (You learn this sort of thing when you family is 1500 miles away and you have family stationed overseas).

Chapter 7 is Christmas Day in Japan. I hope every one caught that given Sesshoumaru ruminated over that fact several times in the chapter.

Chapter 8 is Valentines Day. Well, a little earlier for Kagome. At the very least it is February.

Chapter 9 is March approaching White day. They've been _not _arguing for about a month.

Chapter 10 is April again. In Japan, School Years start in the spring given that they generally go to school year round, spring's a good a time as any. It also means the previous year ends around the same time. I'm not certain if the university carries the same scheduling, but no one else seems to complain about it so I'm leaving it.

This Chapter is set in September. Zombie movies generally hit before October to best capitalize on the Halloween-esque topic. Not that Kagome or Sesshoumaru would really enjoy a zombie movie at all.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Of Zombies and Manners**

Kagome waited patiently for the customer ahead of her to conclude his transaction with the teller. She'd been standing in line with three impatient youkai teenagers for the last half hour waiting for her turn to purchase tickets to see a movie that neither interested her nor had a chance of entertaining her.

Kagome liked going to an occasional movie. It was usually a half way decent method of killing a couple hours in any given evening. Some were quite engaging while others...were obviously geared toward non-thinking teenagers who loved an overabundance of slapstick comedy as opposed to wit, over the top special effects to actual plot, and a decided predilection towards unnecessary gore. She wasn't particularly squeamish about blood; being a future doctor sort of left her without that luxury. Same could be said of finding any one part of the body taboo to be seen. She already knew the Latin names for all of it, watching specific pieces get left behind or flung left and right could never be even mildly enthralling.

And she hated having to share her movie with an overly excited crowd of people – in the rare event that she found one worth spending money to see. Kagome didn't care if the whole world saw the movie before she did. She much preferred an almost empty theater to having to fight to find a seat and then glaring at the various bad-mannered jerks who insisted on talking during the movie she paid to see. If that required she wait a few weeks for the fervor over the show to die down as everybody else in the world got to see it, that was fine with her.

However, she'd made a promise.

At the advent of the summer recess, it came to Kagome's attention that a number of her classmates were planning to accumulate their required community service hours through various programs designed to collect many in a short intensive span of several days. One of her fellows had signed on to build houses with Habitat for Humanity over the course of a few weeks. Another intended to spend the same amount of time in New Orleans helping to clean up the still recovering city from the hurricane a few years back. And three fellow doctors-in-the-making were participating in a Doctor's Without Borders exchange to Peru.

When Kagome had signed on with her new University, she'd understood that Community Service was part of the curriculum requirements. She'd had no problem with that beyond getting settled into her studies and her new country. This was the time to look into what she could do around her rather packed schedule...or so she'd thought.

The moment she'd brought it to the attention of her advisers and sought information about programs she could participate in, she'd encountered a lot of static. They were all adamant she couldn't leave the country, which let out all of the more efficient methods of acquiring the hours she needed. Then came the arguments for and against her need for service hours at all. How much community service should she be required to do, if any? One adviser insisted that Kagome simply couldn't have the time necessary to study two paths of medical study and spend time volunteering at all. Another thought that since her intention was to ultimately benefit two facets of society (youkai and human) that Kagome should do twice the amount usually required. The third thought Kagome should limit her efforts to acting as a tutor to her less apt classmates, hoping that doing so would help her keep up with her studies while solidly reviewing everything she'd studied before that point regularly. The fourth suggested the Big Brothers, Big Sisters organization and Kagome had liked the idea.

The four of them argued back and forth for weeks until Kagome preempted their decision by contacting the local chapter to find her a sib.

That had been Sesshoumaru's suggested move. She'd complained about the stagnant situation to him a few times. When he'd managed to glean just how much Kagome really liked (and secretly needed) the connection to someone younger, he'd seemingly felt confident enough to give her encouragement toward doing what she wanted to do.

Put simply, Kagome missed her younger brother. She missed putting up with his silly friends from time to time. This particular program would enable her to experience some of what she missed being separated from Souta.

Sure she got along well with her roommate and his boyfriend, but it wasn't a relationship where she felt she contributed much that was needed. When Brett-san invited her home for a holiday, she was a guest, not a member of the family. Kagome needed someone to look after, oh not to babysit and certainly not full time. But somebody she could teach something to that had nothing to do with medicine and everything to do with life.

So, Kagome found herself assigned three ookami teenagers to mentor. Apparently the local Big Brother, Big Sister section had learned the Ookami did better mentoring in small groups than one on one. Though Kagome was certain Kouga would have been fine by himself, even if she wouldn't wish it on anyone who wasn't well versed on Ookami behaviors and a raging feminist. He was a brat for all that he was the eldest of the three. The elders of his tribe had informally asked her to do what she could to curb his arrogance and penchant for social faux pas in mixed company.

Kagome had primly informed them she wasn't a miracle worker. There was no help to be had from her when the punk in question couldn't hear past the end of his own words declaring her "his woman" at first acquaintance. In that moment she had wished she were more willing to deliver violence on a body younger than her own. She didn't need another male to claim her without her say so. Being Canadian, the brat was also more tactile in his enthusiastic verbal claims that she found comfortable. Hand shaking she could tolerate. She even occasionally enjoyed hugging with friends who didn't attempt to take ownership of her life. Any contact with him made her want to invest in force field technologies just to keep him away. Kagome had never met a person younger than her who she was so driven to avoid.

If it weren't for the other two, Ginta and Hakkaku, she'd have told the agency to find her new sibs. But she just couldn't do that to them.

The local ookami tribe had suffered significant losses of their adult males throughout the last century. They had originally been based in the United States until after the second world war and the continued use of the draft for further conflicts in Korea and then Vietnam. Somehow, the Ookami always got picked making the elders question whether the draw weren't slightly rigged against them. Ultimately, the pack had immigrated to Canada to save what few breeding males were left to them.

The result of all these wars and losses, left the pack with too few adults to nurture and raise too many young, which sort of left anyone beyond the age where they couldn't clothe and bathe and basically tend themselves in a vast wasteland of mild neglect. Oh they were loved and valued, but when there's only so much time in a day and only so much adult attention to go around, teenagers ran second fiddle to toddlers all the way around.

It was a sad state of things as far as Kagome could judge it. And incredibly unfair. So Kagome would never drop all three just because Kouga was a precocious jerk. She could put up with at least that much for Ginta and Hakkaku. Along those lines, Kagome had promised to take them to a movie if they managed to behave properly over the summer. It wasn't a bribe so much as a show of appreciation as far as she was concerned, given that the three in general were all well-behaved when it came to pack interactions. It was more like earning an allowance for doing the chores required to be done anyway.

She'd expected the trio to pick something at least halfway decent. Summer was a time of multiple movie releases, so Kagome had believed it reasonable to hope they'd chose something that had been out a few weeks. Her hopes had not been met.

The movie they'd chosen was a new release, out just the night before and expected to do marvelously well in the box office its first weekend out of the gate. The theater was already buzzing with a fairly large crowd apparently excited to see it. Kouga had been so excited and worried the show would sell out that he'd insisted they arrive an hour and twenty minutes beforehand. Still they'd been forced to wait in line outside the ticket booth for half an hour.

Just as the person in front of her finished his transaction her pocket started to sing merrily that Taishou-san was calling.

Kagome knew it was rude to talk on the phone when dealing with sales staff in any kind of environment, but she could never not answer that phone. It would be cruel, besides, it would only take her a few moments to make her purchase and then she'd be free to converse with him while her sibs played in the arcade. So she accepted the call. "I'm sorry, but I'm going to hand you off for a moment," she told him before the inu could get a word in and promptly gave her phone over to the trio suddenly paying exceptionally close attention to her. With a growling "be polite" she turned back to the cashier to conduct their transaction.

She wasn't terribly worried that the ookami would offend her mate, Taishou-san was sufficiently aware of what the conversation was likely to hold once he ascertained who he was talking to. And it'd be fairly impossible for him not to clue into Kouga's identity given the demand to know who was calling "his woman". It was sort of funny how Ginta immediately tried to convince Kouga to tone down his behavior. Kagome was occupied with buying their tickets, not deaf after all.

The two younger wolves were always trying to tone their leader down. They looked up to him as best they could, but when it came to Kagome they worried she would disappear on them. They called her nei-san out of respect for her culture and affection for her title and the organization that had sent her to them. They were also well aware of what Kagome's goals were in life and that she really didn't like Kouga or his behavior. In this one facet, Kagome thought the younger two would do better with girls than their senior. They actually listened.

In fact, Ginta had summarily decided he wanted to become a hanyou doctor too, so he could learn from her and help achieve her dream. She imagined that any male who would support a mere surrogate sister that much couldn't help but form a solid healthy relationship with any female he so chose. Being a doctor certainly wouldn't hurt him in the romance department either, if he actually stuck with it long enough to become one. He was only fourteen after all.

Hakkaku's dreams were a little more immediate and short term. He wanted to visit Japan and learn the language so he could introduce himself to her family. He loved to hear about her mother especially after Kagome had allowed him to talk to her once. Her mother's English wasn't perfect, but it was enough to convince the ookami that she was the very best woman on the planet. In a way, Kagome found it funny that he saw her that way. It would almost freak her out if she wasn't completely certain that he saw her mother as simply a mother and given that all three youkai hadn't had the devoted motherly care that she'd had, the doctor-to-be couldn't blame him. Most of her friends in middle and high school had declared their admiration of Mama Higurashi more than once. It was just strange to find her mother's magnificence could be conveyed through something as flimsy as a phone connection.

It was hard to argue that a youkai who could become so enamored of a surrogate mother through one phone conversation and still made sure to ask if it was alright if he worked toward one day meeting her could ever have trouble in love. He was considerate and respectful. And Kagome was certain he actually would visit her family one day. He could work toward that goal and achieve it in a great deal less time than would be required for Ginta to become a doctor, so the fact that Hakkaku was a full year younger did not actually make it less likely he'd actually do it.

Determined to ignore the swiftly degenerating phone conversation being conducted beside her, Kagome quietly informed the teller which movie time they would prefer before sliding the proper amount of tender across the counter. She really wasn't looking forward to this movie. Zombie movies had never held any fascination for her given their medical implausibility even before she began to study it. And she had never enjoyed anything that so overused gore for mere shock value.

That wasn't to say she hadn't seen more than her fair share of them. Her brother Souta had hit thirteen and watched nothing but. The difference between then and now though, was that her little brother watched his gore on the family TV and Kagome could ignore it by doing her homework in another room. Or, if no one else was home (Souta hadn't the fortitude to watch one without someone at least in the room with him), she could read something to block it out while the video played. In a theater that was likely to be as packed as this one, she hadn't a valid avenue for distraction and she'd have to turn her phone off.

By the time the teller counted out her change, Kouga's half of her phone conversation had devolved to mere growls, which may have meant something to wolves and possibly dogs, but didn't to her. Either way, he was obviously being rude by the look on Ginta's pale face and the cringe decorating Hakkaku's. "Kouga!" she growled fiercely as she held out her hand for her phone and carefully guided them away from the ticket line to make room for more customers. "I told you to be polite! You know I don't have to see this movie with you! I could just sit out here!"

"But nei-san!" all three wolves protested even as Kouga reluctantly handed the electronic device back to its owner.

"I promised I'd take you to see a movie of your choice, I never promised to watch it with you!" It had been sort of implied, but the promise was contingent on their good behavior. Being rude on a phone that wasn't even theirs certainly classified as bad behavior.

"But you've already bought the tickets!" Kouga protested with arrogant triumph.

"And I may choose not to use mine if I want to. I'm not as enamored of seeing this movie as you are," she countered shortly and snorted at the look he gave her. Apparently he couldn't believe anybody wouldn't want to see walking decay, cannibalism, and violence. But then, when would he bother to think about what anybody else wanted. Kagome had the sneaking suspicion that Kouga had bullied the other two males into seeing this film instead of something else. There were several other movies currently in theaters she'd thought were more their speed, but neither had spoken up against the decision when the time had come. "You were rude to my caller for no reason even after I told you to be polite. You continued to be so despite the fact both Ginta and Hakkaku tried to talk you out of it. You should listen to them you know," Kagome's tone was clipped. There was more than one reason she had termed him a brat. "They at least have manners. And now because of you all three of you will be seeing this movie without me. I'll wait out here. You have forty five minute before your show starts now go play."

Kouga looked befuddled and his compatriots looked like somebody had kicked their puppy, but Kagome remained resolute. Maybe she'd change her mind just before the show, but for now she wasn't going to watch the stupid movie. "Taishou-san," she pressed the phone to her ear and tried to find a quieter spot in the busy lobby. "I'm sorry about that. I was right up to the teller when you called."

"Hn," his deep voice responded in acknowledgment. "This Sesshoumaru is not sure that punishing all three is necessarily the best course of action."

Kagome sighed, "I know, I hate to do that to poor Ginta and Hakkaku, but the brat needs to learn to both listen and exercise the manners I know he was taught. And nothing else seems to work. I'll try to make it up to them later."

"If you have already bought the ticket would it not be foolish to waste it for something so small. The Ookami was rude, but this Sesshoumaru attempted to inform him that it was both disrespectful and demeaning for him to claim you without first consulting your wishes." Kagome wanted to smirk at that. It was funny the way he was trying to impart that specific piece of wisdom. "I have certainly learned that lesson mate there is no reason for you to find it so humorous. Is it not best for experienced elders to teach those younger than themselves?"

"Is that when he resorted to growling in public?" Kagome chose not to comment. It was still amusing as hell given how _he_ had chosen to go about mating her.

"Actually no," he answered. "I could hear your younger sibs trying to convince the brat to modify his behavior and suggested he listen to them as obviously they cared more about you than he did, or at least knew better how to show it."

"Oh dear," she sighed. It was actually all true. She never questioned how much Ginta and Hakkaku cared about her or her good opinion because they went to great pains to show it in every way possible. Kagome did her best to reciprocate but it was hard to work around the road blocks Kouga set up. He was possessive and jealous but luckily not insecure, though he could use a little flattening to fix that in her frustrated opinion. "No wonder he behaved so badly. Kouga is absolutely convinced that nobody could treat me better all the while treating me no better than property. I'm sorry you had to put up with him."

"Do not be," he responded genially. "It is good practice."

"Practice for what?" she wondered aloud.

"Why, for parenthood," his tone was mildly lascivious, but she couldn't scold him for it. Dealing with a brat _was_ good practice for dealing with other, future unruly children one came into contact with. And given inu penchant for breeding and her own far distant desire for family of her own, it was hardly an argument worth having. "But also for dealing with unreasonable business associates." Which was a more immediate use he was liable to find for his newly acquired experience, that is, if Taishou senior ever found cause to install him in such a position as Sesshoumaru had been given leave to continue his studies again.

Ginta and Hakkaku came slinking back in her direction looking thoroughly scolded for something they weren't in trouble for. "Nei-san?" they called timidly and Taishou-san patiently informed her that he would wait.

"What is it?" she responded gently.

"We won these for you," Ginta announced holding out one of the arcade plush prizes.

"We wanted to apologize for Kouga being rude to your friend," Hakkaku added as he held out a bracelet of colorful beads. "We're sorry if he was offended."

Kagome reverently reached out to take their little gifts each one was already a treasure she cherished despite the fact that the plushie was cheaply made and the beads were only colorful plastic. "It's alright, I'm not mad at you and my friend wasn't offended in anyway. To tell you the truth, he knew what to expect of Kouga," she winked at them.

"So you'll see the movie with us?" Hakkaku perked up.

Kagome wrinkled her nose in indecision. "I would, but Kouga's got to learn that what he did was wrong and that his actions have consequences." Hakkaku deflated.

Ginta frowned thoughtfully but acknowledged that Kagome had the right of it. "It's all right. It's just that Hakkaku gets scared sometimes and to be honest we both tend to have nightmares after these kinds of movies."

Kagome blinked, "Then why didn't you ask to see a different movie? There's still time, we could probably exchange the tickets for you to see a different show."

"But Kouga - " Hakkaku began and Kagome cut him off.

"Then he's not doing his job right," she growled. "He's supposed to look out for you not run roughshod over you. If he knows you're scared or get nightmares then he should have let you pick something else. And I never said you all had to see the same movie."

"Then you could exchange your ticket and watch something you wanted to," Hakkaku suggested.

Kagome shook her head, "No, I'm responsible for you guys. If your movies don't start at the same time and don't end at the same time I still have to be out here throughout."

"What if it's just Kouga who's in a different movie?" Ginta asked. "He's older, he could be fine on his own. And we wouldn't have to tell him you were seeing a movie with us."

"Truth is there wasn't anything we wanted see so much as we wanted to see a movie with you," Hakkaku admitted shyly.

"Hmm," Kagome pondered the idea. "I would have to know exactly when his show got out so I could be out here to wait for him otherwise he would figure it out."

"I think one of the movies I wanted to see started just before his did, if you don't mind missing the very beginning of the movie," Ginta suggested.

"We'd fill you in." Hakkaku added eagerly.

"It's been out a few weeks so it shouldn't be too hard for you to find us in the dark," Ginta continued, warming up to their planned intrigue. Normally the duo wouldn't dream of pulling one over on their older pack mate, but Kagome was worth it.

"All right then, lets get back in line," she agreed with a small sigh of relief. Kagome really hadn't liked punishing Ginta and Hakkaku for Kouga's bad behavior, but nothing else seemed to be working. Now, she was punishing him, making him think she was punishing the other two but not; all without him being the wiser.

"Wow, mate, you're teaching them bad things," Taishou-san chuckled through the phone.

"Shush you," Kagome muttered back at him.

"Peace mate," he rumbled further. "I think your influence is only positive. A little duplicity is hardly likely to lead them down a life of crime and it certainly harms far less in this case than honesty would. Besides, I'm rather impressed by their plan. Wolves seldom go against an alpha's choice and bidding, but as you said a proper alpha would not have bullied them into such a situation either. It makes me wish..." he trailed off there.

"You wish you were here so you could teach him better," she finished for him.

"Maybe, but I should probably learn better myself before I attempt to teach anyone else," he muttered.

"Inuyasha again?"

"This one's father actually. The hanyou has found attachment to a human female of – hn – lesser birth than our alpha would prefer. It came to blows this morning in father's office. When this Sesshoumaru attempted to neutralize things both turned on me. Inuyasha with the assumption that I was siding with father and father because I had deigned to interfere at all."

"Are you well?" Kagome well knew that youkai family disputes tended to get physical.

"I am fine, mate. A little sore perhaps but hardly worth mentioning," he was pleased that she had asked in any case, she could tell. "It is just frustrating."

She could only imagine. In a normal inuyoukai pack Sesshoumaru should only have been turned on by one of the two males if either at all. But the Taishou pack, she was fast learning, did not view Sesshoumaru in the way that they should. He was heir and yet remained separate from most of the pack coming and goings. It was rare that he was present for even something like the announcement of intent to court from another male. Kagome could only assume that it was Inuyasha's doing. For all that the brothers weren't close, they tried to keep each other included the way Hiroyuki should have insured things were from the start.

"Well, there's no way I know of to make peace with your alpha, but your brother should be easy. Take him aside in private and inform him that a male such as you who has no idea who or what his mate is could certainly have no problems with a female of any background or species so long as she was true to him and your pack," she ignored the glances from her two youngest sibs standing next to her. "I don't think he'll continue giving you hell once he's thought about it. He's too prone to trying to include you in things to hate you unreasonably."

"This Sesshoumaru will do as you suggest at the first opportunity. It is far too uncomfortable for things to continue as they are." She could hear him shift with a grunt of some of that pain he refused to admit he felt. "Enjoy your movie and intrigue mate. May your brat not find out the trick you play on him."

Kagome chuckled, "May it be so!"


	12. A Call in the Woods

As we wander through the time our protagonists spend apart, we're going to start pulling away from listening in on their every conversation. The world is bigger than their talks with each other and they are growing. Kagome's experience and circle are a bit wider than Sesshoumaru's right now for a number of reasons.

To start with, nobody is likely to squeal in uncontrollable excitement and awe at first meeting her. She's not a celebrity like Sesshoumaru is. She doesn't have fan boys/girls eager to jump her bones at the first invitation. It somewhat limits his ability to meet new people and become genuinely close to them. compound that with he rather aloof personality, his penchant for silence in the face of inane conversation and his focus on his distant mate, he's stuck in a recipe for solitude. Then add to that the reality that his father has no respect for any plans Sesshoumaru might have when the business calls and the younger inu himself might be reluctant to even attempt making plans. this limits his growth in the world, but there are options. He ahs a pack that has mostly ignored him and somewhat vice versa. He is supposed to inherit the alpha position after his father, but Hiroyuki fails to prepare him for the roll, but his actions are also leaving the pack out of the process as well.

Calendar: This takes place in October. Don't argue. Thanksgiving in Canada is before Halloween. Look it up and learn something!

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**A Call in the Woods**

Sesshoumaru paced back and forth in the clearing he'd come to after his hours long run. It was considered customary and necessary for youkai to regularly assume their more natural native spirit forms to avoid excessive instinctual pressures. The release acted as a pressure valve, heading off incidents before things hit critical mass as it were. The Taishou pack had use of the grounds upon which the clan estate rested, or rather, most of the pack did.

Sesshoumaru usually waited for an invitation to some meeting concerning pack business for the simple certainty he was allowed on the property. Oftentimes in the past years since his partial exile to his own penthouse flat in the city the inu would have to wait months in between visits. He'd found other ways to cope since a youkai wasn't technically allowed to shift on public property and only a handful of the parks in Tokyo were big enough to supply the necessary space for him to run in anyway.

That had been another reason for his womanizing. Sex was a great outlet for a number of things, or so he'd found. Sex in inu form was an even greater outlet, though Sesshoumaru had never had that experience. He probably never would either given the images he associated with the mere thought.

Back when he'd first been booted out of the Taishou manse, Sesshoumaru had simply assumed he could come back to run any time he so needed to and had done so. Nobody had informed him otherwise and things had been fine the first handful of times he'd returned until that one trip. Sesshoumaru had been contentedly loping through underbrush and low branches when he'd stumbled upon his sire enjoying the inu flesh of his mother. The thing about mating in inu form was that it was oft times brutal, bloody, and borderline rape by human sensibilities.

Sesshoumaru had occasionally heard humans complain about accidentally walking in on their parents during intimacy and subsequently being scarred for life. He always wanted to scoff at them. It wasn't like they walked in on their parents having bloody, growling, almost snuff film worthy sex like he had. And he was, minorly, scarred for life. He never ever wanted to see it again, even before his father had attacked him for encroaching on the tryst by accident. It had taken a lot of effort and self-psychoanalysis to be able to keep all images associated with the incident with just sex in inu form and not sex in general. Which is just as well, because he'd needed that outlet desperately since he refused to return without invitation.

Strangely, his father had seen fit to scold him for neglecting his social duties by not shifting as often as Hiroyuki thought he should, but the alpha neglected to offer an open invitation to return and he certainly hadn't begun issuing a welcome to his eldest more often either.

He'd been hard pressed to find a new outlet for his instincts since he refused to be unfaithful to his mate and the added strain of his nightly almost-wet dreams made things worse.

It was Inuyasha who'd begun calling Sesshoumaru for the various things an heir was supposed to be included in. Inuyasha insisted he be present for everything from minor pack disputes to any and all announcements from various individuals. Truthfully, as his mate had pointed out more than once, it was supposed to be the alpha's job to include the heir in these things, but Sesshoumaru could say nothing about it. The inner pack relations had always seemed to be thus, and Inuyasha had seemingly only recently realized this was wrong. And because the boy was working to correct the issue, Sesshoumaru found he had more regular access to the preferred form of youkai release and exercise, though he doubted the younger Taishou knew it.

Sesshoumaru wondered how the hanyou had come to such knowledge. His mate's knowing was purely academic. She's learned all from books and then from conversation with him. She wasn't inu and therefore couldn't understand how unfathomable it seemed that his father could ignore the instinct to keep Sesshoumaru close. Nor could she understand how he could leave things as is since instinct demanded he follow the lead of his alpha.

Which was neither here nor there.

Inuyasha wasn't that academic. He barely bothered to learn enough to pass the classes he was required to take. The only reason the Hanyou attended university was because their parents refused to let him go without. Either Inuyasha had developed a sudden desire to read up on the inu customs he hadn't enough instinct to learn from birth, or someone was tutoring him on it. Someone the boy cared enough about to actually listen to. _Who_ was the greater mystery, but Sesshoumaru was willing to let it be. It was enough that the boy was acting on what he was learning.

Sesshoumaru had finally come to terms with the fact that when the time came, he would definitely be breaking away from the Taishou pack to form his own. The clan relationships when applied to him were not what they should be and staying for terribly much longer would only prove detrimental to his own health. It already had.

He hadn't realized it before, but the way he had been held apart from the rest of the clan had hurt him in ways he hadn't understood or been able to realize until his mate. In a lot of ways, he was closer to her than he had ever been to the majority of his father's pack and he didn't even know her name and hadn't seen her in person for over a year. Inu packs weren't supposed to be that way, and that it had been for him was a kind of torment that could be termed cruel. Especially given that he hadn't done anything to deserve it.

It was a bad situation all round, the only cure was for Sesshoumaru to beat his sire in combat to take over the Taishou pack or start his own and leave. He believed it would simply be healthier to make a clean break. There were too many bad memories associated with the old pack, too much he had never been taught about the individual members to be able to lead them successfully and healthily. It would be better to start out small. Him and his mate. Their eventual pups. And apparently Inuyasha and his chosen too.

That Inuyasha planned to follow him was the big surprise. It shouldn't have surprised him that the hanyou intended to break away because where the pack neglected Sesshoumaru, they smothered Inuyasha.

However, when a male broke with a pack it was usually to start his own, not to follow another male and join another pack. It was a strange way for things to turn out, but Sesshoumaru found himself exceedingly grateful for his hanyou brother. While he was certain his mate wouldn't care if they left the greater Taishou pack for their own smaller one, Sesshoumaru would still enjoy the presence of another inu, even a half one. That was a far distant future, he hadn't the means to separate just now and Inuyasha felt the same.

Dismissing his train of thought, Sesshoumaru turned and picked up one enormous paw only to set it back down with unconscious grace as he continued to pace. Normally, his movements would be slowing down as he worked to a stop, allowing his youki and pulse to assume a more sedate state of being, but today had been odd from the start. Sesshoumaru usually waited until after whatever meeting or event had called him out here to run the wild paths of the Taishou grounds, but he'd been restless and anxious all night. So much so that he hadn't even been able to sleep.

True his nights often left him obtaining little to no rest due to the constant arousing visions of his far distant as yet unknown mate, but always he was able to at least reach a somnolent state in order to suffer those dreams first. Last night, he simply couldn't get his mind and body to settle enough to achieve even that much. He'd laid there and watched the star shine through his wide window for hours to no purpose before finally giving up and rising from his uneasy bed. His nerves had been twitching restlessly and had he been in inu form, so would his tail.

AS such, he'd concluded he needed a good run, the physical exertion and instinctual release could serve to relax him enough that he could nap briefly before he had to be up at the mansion for today's torture session. All meetings with his sire this day revolved around Inuyasha's intended mate and her so-called unfitness for the hanyou. Given that Inuyasha had no intention of staying with his father's pack the continued stalemate over the issue was moot. The alpha just didn't know it yet. Today was supposed to involve both the alpha's females in the debate, though debate was inaccurate. Hiroyuki failed to argue his side, he merely ordered things be done his way and Inuyasha flat out refused to follow that and declared as much at every encounter.

Sesshoumaru didn't know how life was going in the mansion, but he had heard that the hanyou was spending fewer nights at home than his mother would like.

Which was neither here nor there at the current moment. Sesshoumaru had arrived on the estate just after dawn and preceded to shift upon exiting his car and run the entire length and breadth of the property until he was breathing hard, the sun was high, and he was forced to a conclusion.

It. Was. _Not_. Working.

Something was bothering him, and Sesshoumaru simply could not figure out what. Certainly he was concerned over his half-brother's issues with their alpha, but he had never lost sleep over it. He'd talked to his mate just yesterday morning, so that wasn't likely to be it...Was it?

Sesshoumaru finally came to a stop and ducked out of the pouch slung around his canine neck. Most inu refused to allow anything to hinder them while they ran, but Sesshoumaru went no where without his phone. To that end, he'd made a special pack that would protect the electronic device from the elements, the more caustic aspects of his inu form, and any excess splashes of his youki during his change. It had been a hard lesson learned by youkai kind in general, but youki and electricity and the little devices associated therewith did not mix very well.

A hasty shift in youki left Sesshoumaru standing over the sack on two legs instead of four and bending to pull out his phone under the nooning sun. It was an opportune time to call his mate and double check that all was well with her.

The country she was in was celebrating a Thanksgiving day, which was apparently filled with lots of eating, family visits and a general day of rest. Thus, she'd told him she'd be available, for which he was thankful, Sesshoumaru acknowledged with a small smirk.

With exceptionally careful claws – longer now that he'd spent time in his true form- Sesshoumaru hit send. He awaited the first ring with breathless anticipation, hoping that his sudden anxiety was unfounded and uncaring that he stood perfectly illuminated under the high sun, exposed as a newborn babe and pressing the phone to his ear. He looked like a wild thing with the wind in his hair, clothed only in sunshine and youki. The very modern cell phone pressed to his ear looked incredibly out of place.

When the phone started on its second ring, Sesshoumaru's anxiety began to spike. His mate kept his phone on her at all times, very rarely did it have the opportunity to go past the first ring. Not even in the library did his rather generous female neglect a call to that extent.

When it rang a third time, Sesshoumaru started to panic. Where was she? It was unusual for his mate to be sleeping at this time of day, given her chronic insomnia and the fact that when she did occasionally get some sleep, she made a point of turning off her special cell which would have prevented even the first ring as he would have been directed straight to voice mail. Something had to be wrong.

The advent of a forth tone had him all but ready to break any and all promises and a number of international laws to track her down just to reassure himself that his female was fine. Before that happened though, the call connected. "This is my wonder woman roommate's phone. The lovely oriental darling is currently indisposed, how may I help you?" the voice chirping in his ear did little to calm his nerves. But Sesshoumaru was no longer in danger of rampaging from one hemisphere to another in search of a mate nobody knew he had. At least so far as the public was concerned.

To avoid unheard of levels of embarrassment, the public was kept in the dark about his mating. The only explanation the clan had given for Sesshoumaru's sudden seeming celibacy was a mysterious engagement to a female left unnamed in the press. His mate had laughingly congratulated him on his engagement, much to his personal disdain. Of course that was back when the relationship was new, and he'd lacked the confidence to apply his sense of humor to the situation. Right now he just didn't have the patience.

"Where is she?" came his growling demand. Instinct was a little too close to the surface for his usual smoother tones.

"Wow!" the male on the other end of the line quivered. "Do _you_ have a sexy voice! How dare my precious roommate keep such auditory splendor from my ears for so long! Hmmph!"

"Where is she?" the words came out a bit rougher this time, given his increased worry and frustration.

"Oh she's fine," the male was obviously pouting, though what about was open for interpretation. "Little Miss Independent got her ass involved in a bit of a dust up yesterday evening. Some dumbass tried to attack her. She managed to send him through a shop window before too much could happen, but she suffered bumps, scrapes and bruises. Most of the night and part of this morning was spent at the police station."

"What?" Sesshoumaru sank to his knees clutching the phone to his ear. His heart felt like it had dropped three feet and all but stopped beating.

"She's been sleeping off the shock all day. Well, except when I wake her periodically. I'm convinced she has a mild concussion, but try convincing her of that," Brett rambled as he clearly moved about the apartment. "You're in luck though, I was about to wake her again in fifteen minutes. A little early won't hurt anything." There was some rustling and a sleepy murmur in the background. "Wakey, wakey, sleeping beauty. How dare you keep such a sexy voice from your most devoted of roommates?"

"Wah-huh?" came the muffled feminine voice Sesshoumaru had been waiting to hear. "What are you talking about? I thought Louis-san's voice was the sexiest voice you'd ever need."

"That was before I heard your Mr. Sexy-voice. Louis-san is my bread and butter and the air I breath, but the auditory cake goes to your beau!"

"Give me my phone and go away you crazy dream crasher," his mate groaned.

"It's for your own good! It was either this or a prolonged stay in the hospital for observation," the brain girl declared flatly. "Now you stay up for at least thirty minutes and I'll set my alarm for about 2am so I can wake you again." There was the sound of a door closing followed by the sound of something too soft to be intended to do damage colliding with the wooden obstruction.

"Kami save me from crazy roommates," her voice was clearer now that his mate had taken up the phone. "Hello Taishou-san."

"You were attacked," he growled, his depressed lethargic heart finally back where it belonged and beating double time for the profound worry inspired upon being informed of injury delivered unto his female. "You were injured."

"I swear it's not as bad as he made it seem. I really don't have a concussion," she sleepily protested. "Hmm, but I suppose that's not the point."

"No, It is not." Sesshoumaru managed to agree generously. "You were injured."

"Look, I know how most inu would react and manage a situation where its female was harmed, but I don't know how we're going to appease your instinct while maintaining you there and me here. I suffered no serious injury and if you can get away with fighting with your alpha and your younger brother and not itemize every single injury you'd gained then I'm not going to sacrifice obtaining my goal in what amounts to the same thing." Her obvious yawn did not detract from the seriousness behind her words.

Despite the anxious tension gnawing at him and the growing impulse to break every promise he'd made to her and himself in regards to the tenuous telephonic connection they shared, Sesshoumaru had already realized she would insist on their continued separation. She had a long road still and had sacrificed much already.

That still didn't stop the need to check over his mate in the time honored way of inu, namely to strip her down, itemize and catalog each hurt, doctoring them directly as needed, and then reassuring himself of her continued well-being by driving her to carnal completion. It was instinctive. How to achieve the same purpose at such a distance?

"I still can't believe the jerk was brave enough to attempt it. It wasn't even dark out and there were people around!" she continued to ramble tiredly as his mind whirled around to find a solution to the problem presented to him. "I mean sure the street lights were starting to come on, but it was still pretty light out. Granted most of the people still on the street were bustling home to get out of the cold and make it to warm dinners. They were still there. One even stopped to call in the situation when he heard the glass breaking. Hell, he even stayed to give a statement to the police."

"A bath," he murmured.

"What?" she stopped her compulsive explanation at his interruption.

"This Sesshoumaru may have found a way to appease his instincts while allowing our continued separation," he clarified his previous words. He was pretty certain she wouldn't like his solution, but he hoped she would allow it in view of the greater issues at play.

"A bath?"

"In combination with the removal of whatever it is you have interfering with our bond," he continued.

"I'm not going to-"

"At this great a distance, mate, the bond would direct me to take the shortest distance to you from here. Given my guesstimates over the time difference between here and there, the shortest distance would take me straight down. I would not be able to find you, but I would be able to better assess any damage delivered unto your person by this- hn-this cretin who caused you harm."

"And the getting naked and taking a bath part?" she hummed at him incredulously.

"This Sesshoumaru assumes that you're taking some form of painkiller. The process of taking a bath would allow you to focus on one particular set of nerves at a time allowing the occasional flare of pain to communicate more accurately through our link," he explained as calmly as he could. If she wasn't taking something to numb the pain, the bath would still serve the same purpose as it would cause a specific spike in sensation at one particular point amidst a sea of general soreness. Sudden need to defend oneself caused tension in muscles that aren't used.

"You sure you don't just want me to strip down for you?" she teased him mildly.

"Much as this Sesshoumaru would enjoy your unclothed state in any situation, this nudity does serve a purpose," he replied evenly. It did, but the fact she would be naked left him aroused and straining in the sun.

"Hmm, okay," she agreed. He could hear her moving around her room, before he heard a door open and then close. "I'm going to put my blue tooth in and tie up my hair," she announced over the dull roar of running water.

Sesshoumaru's eyes widened as he realized she really was going to follow through with his suggested plan. He would actually be able to feel her, feel her clearly and taste of her soul.

"You still there, Taishou-san? It is alright if I don't get my head wet isn't it?"

"I- yes," he answered swiftly. "It is fine. How else are we to maintain contact?"

"Good," She responded firmly. "I hope you realize what kind of imposition this is. I normally just shower since moving here. They don't have bathrooms set up the same as they do back home. I hate sitting in dirty water."

"How do you mean?" he asked blandly as he carefully bent to open the pouch that had held his phone to it's full extent and turn the softer interior up for him to sit upon. Sesshoumaru made a mental note to start carrying a square of cloth with him in future to serve that purpose.

"The Shower is built into the bathtub and there are no drains outside of the tub basin. The water is drained from the tub after every bath, which you would think would help keep the water clean except you're supposed to wash the dirt off in the pool of water you're also supposed to soak in."

"Barbaric," Sesshoumaru rumbled.

"No, just different. But I do prefer to shower instead. Japanese upbringing and all that." The water ceased its roar indicating she was ready to start.

"Mate, the bond," he reminded her and was rewarded with the richest sensation of power and emotion flooding his senses that could ever have been borne.

"Better, Taishou-san?" she teased him before groaning in enjoyment. He could almost feel the warmth suffuse her aching, throbbing nerves. He also noted that she didn't just step into the tub, but rather sat carefully on the edge before swinging her legs over the side. This action indicated she'd suffered injury to one or the other of her legs. "Oh, this is wonderful. I hadn't realized how badly I ached."

"Indeed."

"I guess I was just one big throbbing nerve before." Sesshoumaru supposed he could appreciate that, but there was a greater purpose to her submerging in hot water than simply getting the soreness to abate. Something she was apparently mindful of as her next words indicated "Okay Taishou-san, where shall we start. I'm soaping up a washcloth and waiting for your direction." She paused before continuing allowing him to think, "I normally use a bath puff, but thought a regular washcloth would better serve our purpose."

Sesshoumaru appreciated her thoughtfulness as he had failed to think about it. "Right foot mate, starting with individual toes." It was strange feeling the rasp of the scrubbing cloth against flesh not his own, and he probably wouldn't have been able to distinguish it if the bond had been allowed to develop in the natural way of such things. But, given the near complete lack of it, it was hardly surprising he was so sensitive to the sudden added strength and clarity.

She began to hum absently as the cleaning sensation and firm fingers moved from toes to the ball of her foot then onward in a natural progression. She hissed slightly when she reached her knee. "What is it mate?" he demanded.

"Just a friction burn. I was wearing jeans yesterday because of the weather. It was kind of cool and rainy," she answered. "I must have rubbed against them when I fell."

"This Sesshoumaru thought you threw your attacker through a store front."

"I did, mostly to buy me time and to give a definite location for the emergency responders to go to. It was one of those higher end stores, but without bars. I figured they had an alarm that would draw the police," she prodded the heated patch of skin gingerly. "I was also trying to buy time."

"You tried to run," he noted.

"Naturally," she agreed. "I'm not very big. The majority of the training I've done has to do with buying time and gaining distance from an attacker so that better equipped authorities can help me before anything particularly bad for my health can happen." The female sighed unhappily. "He climbed out of the window faster than I expected and tackled me from behind. That's when I must have gotten this and the bump on my head."

"Hn, continue mate. Other foot," the picture of the attack as it had happened was becoming clearer. It didn't take as long for her to hiss in pain this time. "Your ankle?"

"The move I used to throw him through the window. I used to spar with a girl friend back home. She's a master of several forms of martial arts. I just know enough to keep me in one piece. Anyway, I'm out of practice. There hasn't been a decent dojo to train at nor a partner to spar with, even if I had the time to do it since I came here. Doesn't really matter, the guy was too close to pull that move without wrenching my ankle pretty good. Probably why I didn't get farther away before he clambered free of the window." He felt her fingers massage around the throbbing joint, "At least it didn't swell up real bad."

"You should still probably ice it when we are done, mate," he pointed out gently.

"Probably. Moving on." As she'd indicated, the cloth moved on and Sesshoumaru himself was slightly okay with that. As she'd said, the ankle wasn't in real bad shape, no worse than if she'd taken a bad step and fallen on her own. There was nothing that could be done to fix it, the skin wasn't ruptured, the bone undamaged. As she'd said, moving on. She had another friction burn on her other knee which was hardly surprising. He directed her to her right hand.

There he encountered bruised knuckles and a scraped palm; the first from her initial efforts to send her assailant through the shop window, the second from her attempt to break her fall. The muscles of both arms were sore and twitchy with strain and over use. There were significant cuts on her left hand and scratches up her forearm from the broken glass, hardly a surprise or even significant enough to worry over. Her back was naturally sore from the unaccustomed effort of throwing her attacker and the jarring fall when she was tackled.

Dressing for the weather had apparently saved her from further damage. The scrapes and cuts would have been more extensive had her skin been bare. Bumps and bruises were vastly better than bleeding scrapes. Scrapes brought risk of infection.

Keeping his tone even and solid, Sesshoumaru directed his mate's attention to her front. He'd avoided it before because he'd inevitably direct her to attempt achieving orgasm. Besides, she was going over territory Sesshoumaru barely had an equivalent for on his own body. Her bosom was slightly tender from impacting the ground so harshly, her belly slightly less so. His mate's thighs suffered random friction burns and one overly tender, slightly strained muscle. Also unsurprising.

He hadn't known she knew how to defend herself, but he was glad she did. "What did he want from you? What did he hope to gain?" he murmured mostly to himself.

"I don't know," she answered gently. "The police didn't bother to fill me in on that. They just wanted to make sure that the fool attacked me and that I'm the one who threw him into the shop instead of me attacking him for breaking into the shop. They seemed to think I had somehow gotten that all mixed up." She sounded both beleaguered and insulted by the mere thought.

"Mate," he began gently, trying to figure out how to lead her into the last necessary bit of this little episode.

"I really, really don't feel like going there Taishou-san," she complained. Apparently even mildly concussed, because he was convinced she was, his female was sharp enough to know what came next.

"Close your eyes mate," he commanded with a chuckle. A little known fact about inu mating bonds was that the transmission of sensation didn't go just one way. He could make her feel his touch from his little clearing bathed in sunlight all the way around the world to her bathroom resting in a pool of cooling water.

"Taishou-san, I don't think you're aware of just how likely I am to fall asleep if I close my eyes," she protested.

"This Sesshoumaru can assure you, you won't fall asleep," no way would that happen unless he'd completely lost his touch. It occurred to him to worry about how much sleep she'd apparently gotten in the last twenty four hours. "Why are you so prone to sleep mate?"

"Hmm, it's not a concussion. The adrenaline rush released during a scare like that always leads to a rather prolonged crash. Sleep is seemed to be required to properly flush my system." She sighed quietly, "When we first discovered this little quirk, my whole family summarily decided that we'd rather put up with my insomnia than do what was necessary to put me to sleep."

"This Sesshoumaru would have to agree," he murmured. "Now eyes closed mate, I'm certain we can manage to find something else that will help you sleep when the time comes."


	13. The Sin of Honesty

Since the issues were raised, I thought I'd address them for everybody.

1\. Kagome was basically mugged in the last chapter. Who attacked her is unimportant as every city has muggers, her city just has one less harassing innocent shoppers now. The mugger was left unnamed because I very much doubt that every mugging victim learns the name and criminal history of the person who attempted or was successful in mugging them.

Kagome was targeted because she doesn't look native to her current city, she's petite, she's female, and she was alone. Crime rates spike around the holidays and it was a holiday weekend in Canada.

2\. Kagome is not going to start calling Sesshoumaru by name yet. Time does not equate with intimacy. They might almost be friends, but not the closest of friends. Sesshoumaru doesn't volunteer anything about his life, Kagome has to ask. Kagome has secrets of her own and she's not someone who immediately let people in for several reasons. Kagome may be friendly, but that doesn't mean she shares her secrets or lets people close. She avoids spontaneous displays of affection out of self-preservation. Remember, Kagome is a miko, which is considered an endangered species, all but extinct but for the ones mated to youkai. Sesshoumaru is youkai and she doesn't fully trust hime yet.

Calendar: It's December again. Time sure flies when you're living life!

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**The Sin of Honesty**

Kagome sat irritably by the window in the breakfast nook and watched the snow fall in fat, lacy flakes over the yard. Last year, her roommate had insisted on taking her home with him for at least part of the winter holidays under protest from her advisers. Due to the limited time she'd had to spend with their family, the visit had been filled with a hectic rush that was as fun and stimulating as it was overwhelming. Brett-san had a large close-knit family with a wide range of traditions associated with the holiday, the season, and just being family.

This year, Brett's family had planned to go on a cruise. She'd been invited but her budget and the same professors as last year refused to let her go. Kagome had thought that would mean she would be left to her own devices in the apartment. She had rather been looking forward to it since the associations her people made with December 25th were romantic instead of familial and her _only_ romantic partner was in Japan and didn't know her name.

Kagome should have known Brett wouldn't have allowed that to happen. _His_ views of the holiday required she not be alone. Thus, his boyfriend had been finagled into dragging her to spend the holidays with his family.

Louis-san's holiday traditions were of an entirely different flavor all together. There was no rush to go visit with various extended family members. This year, there seemed to be no special holiday tradition _she just had to _experience to get the full scope of holiday doings. There wasn't even going to be a midnight mass. The decorations had been put up weeks ago rather than waiting for the gathering of family to partake in the task. There were no special last minute cookies to bake because they were so-and-so's favorite. Most of the family wasn't even home spending time together. They were out enjoying various solitary winter activities.

Kagome was adjusting.

Louis-san was out snowshoeing. His mom was down in town at a community ice skate meant mostly for smaller kids, and his father had gone ice fishing. Louis' sister Bianca was pouting upstairs in her room since a previous skiing excursion had left her with a sprained ankle and her dad refused to take her ice fishing with him. Apparently the usually athletic girl was prone to behavior that scared away the fish, though how anybody could scare away fish under several inches of foggy ice, Kagome couldn't fathom. Gisette, Louis' mom, had invited Bianca to the Ice Skate, which the bratty teen had scoffed at. Besides, once it had been made clear that Kagome had no intention of going with Louis after breakfast the teen was determined to spy on her.

How the family could have expected her to want to spend extended periods of time outside in the frigid air was unfathomable given the fact Kagome had arrived wrapped in four coats, three pairs of pants, six pairs of socks and still violently shivering when she was first introduced to her hosts. Kagome _had_ experienced one winter in her new country before this, but Brett's family home and the city that housed her school were both further south than Louis-san's. When it had come time for bed last night, she'd been tempted to wear every article of clothing she'd brought with her and still ask for extra blankets. No way was she going to go on an extended snowshoeing excursion in this weather.

Then again, the family was convinced she was one step away from becoming Louis' fiance. Sure Kagome had been certain the family would possibly see her as a serious _girlfriend_ as opposed to a girl _friend_, but practically engaged was a bit of a stretch. Apparently, their assumption was based on the fact that Louis-san had never before brought home anyone let alone a woman. Both she and Taishou-san had been rather annoyed by that revelation.

Kagome's expression turned exasperated. Both parents were pressing her to spend as much time with Louis as was feasible despite appearances and protestations on both sides. Kagome knew for a fact that Louis-san went snowshoeing for the express purpose of having time alone and away from the pressures of his family. She wouldn't have gone with him even if the cold hadn't been a factor. Of course telling his mom that within hearing range of his sister had made for an uncomfortable breakfast given Bianca's penchant for casting speculative, suspicious glances her way over the eggs.

Bianca's pouting had been bad enough, but Kagome was now convinced the twit believed there was some greater nefarious intent in her staying behind than the simple courtesy that was intended. Kagome hoped the girl had found one of her friends available to commiserate with her over her physical shortcomings interfering with her usual outdoor winter pleasures rather than the alternative.

Kagome was expecting a call from Taishou-san and Louis-san was expected back around lunchtime. If she could somehow remain nosy brat free until at least that time, Kagome would be very grateful. As it was, she was too uncomfortable to get any productive studying done in the house.

In a way, the younger girl was testing Kagome. While the parents were simply tickled pink at the mere evidence their beloved son wouldn't end up alone for all his days, Bianca wanted proof the candidate was worthy. Kagome would respect that more if Louis-san had actually indicated a desire to marry _her_.

Her phone gave off that cheerful sound that indicated Taishou-san was calling. Thankful that the obnoxiously annoying teenager wasn't present, Kagome accepted the call.

"Hello mate," his imperious voice carried into her ear. He sounded rather cheerful for being a mated male spending the holiday alone. Then again, he was sort of spending it with her, and that's all he seemed to want.

"Hello Taishou-san," she responded gently. Kagome was well aware that he was exceptionally tired of her terming him thusly. After their more intimate activities two months ago due to his instinctive need to check her over for injury he'd renewed the argument over addressing him more familiarly. "Don't even bring it up again, I'm definitely not in the mood."

"Hn," his contemplative hum was more of a rumbling growl than usual. Such indicated he'd been out running again. She'd slowly begun to pick up the little signs of it. Kagome would admit she liked talking with him best right after a run. Taishou Sesshoumaru was at his mellowest after such a release. "What are you wearing, mate?"

That was the other new addition to their conversations in the last couple months. The attack back in October hadn't started it. Rather he'd managed to catch her just getting out of the shower a couple times which naturally lead to the question. The first two times, she'd ignored it. The third time he'd proven so annoyingly persistent she'd snapped at him to shut up or she would hang up and get dressed. Naturally, now that he knew she'd been at least mostly undressed during one conversation, he'd wanted to know every time after that. Her answers generally depended on her mood. Sometimes she invented incredibly unlikely costumes. "Three rolls of saran wrap, and it's terribly uncomfortable," she answered smartly. Kagome got that particular idea from a movie they'd watched the night before.

Once she'd told him she was dressed like Rambo, which kind of back fired as Taishou-san proceeded to visualize her without a shirt and just the two ammo belts slung across her chest. The result was a lot of visible cleavage. Or so she understood. Another time she told him she was wearing a nun costume, which he hadn't believed even though she actually was wearing it.

Some days she felt waspish enough to detail everything she was wearing in reality down to the brand of her socks and shoes, taking as much time to do it as humanly possible. Sometimes she completely ignored the question altogether. It was rather like a game. Like having an argument without argument. Mostly it made her smile. Like now when his deep chuckle rolled over the connection.

"This Sesshoumaru would rather like to see that," he declared.

"I could give you a movie reference," she smirked, practically ready to burst with mischievous laughter. The woman who'd sported the saran in the movie, while perfectly lovely, wasn't exactly showing a lot of skin. Nor was she in any way similar to Kagome in appearance. She was older, had a heavier bone structure and an entirely different complexion. But Kagome had liked the character and certainly respected the actor.

"No mate, I am fully capable of supplying appropriate imagery," of which she had no doubt given how her Rambo suggestion had turned out. "Unless you desire to send images of yourself in this particular costume, This Sesshoumaru will satisfy his curiosity without outside help until such time that we can explore the possibilities together."

Kagome hit her forehead with her unoccupied hand tempted to groan. She was beginning to regret every costume she'd ever suggested, as the reality that he would someday demand to see each one in person became apparent. Some of her suggestions would be exceedingly embarrassing and this last one really would be uncomfortable, all that un-breathing plastic. She should have expected him to get revenge this way.

"Do not worry mate, this Sesshoumaru can promise that you will not be forced to actually wear anything very long before you will be quickly divested of it," his chuckle was heavier with his greater meaning.

"Hmph!" she scowled out at the snow. But he left it at that. She was under no illusions that he didn't want to pursue the subject further with more immediate activity as that facet had also been readmitted into their conversations since he'd successfully shoved her to climax the night after her attack. In fact, every phone call after that one had been fraught with efforts to talk her into a repeat of any single part of that evening from simply taking a bath, dropping her interference in the bond, to her just being naked or talking her into any variation of phone sex.

Since she wasn't home in her apartment things wouldn't go any farther than such light teasing as had already passed. It was probably the reason he was so against her going to visit Louis-san's family this year. Brett-san made a point of not interfering with her phone beyond sporadically demanding a dose of "Mr. Sexy-Voice". Brett had made Louis swear that she would be able to take calls from her "beau" at any time without interference before taking this trip. Louis-san wasn't intimate with any of the details surrounding her special phone, but he had promised Kagome could take her calls in peace. That was before they'd made their appearance before his parents and sister.

Kagome had no desire to test his promise by taking her calls in front of the family, but she wouldn't not answer Taishou-san if he called either. "Are you having a good day?" she asked him. Sometimes he did and other times he didn't, if she didn't ask he wouldn't divulge the information. Kagome was pretty certain he needed the outlet even if he didn't realize it. Besides, it pleased him that she asked at all. She got the feeling that too few people had evinced such signs of caring before.

"Pleasant enough, mate," he replied with an obvious smile in his tone. "The alpha has not called me to attend anything particularly tedious today and Inuyasha met with us to announce that any further attempts to talk him out of mating would have to wait until after tomorrow. This one assumes such is due to the holiday and a desire to spend it with his chosen."

"He really is dedicated," she observed.

"Hnn, one begins to wonder if his dedication is due more to father telling him he can't mate her than a personal inclination and desire to be so," came his rather cynical rejoinder.

Kagome blinked, "Why would you say that? He's attended every other stupid meeting, allowing your alpha to dictate the when and where. He has managed to be marginally respectful of your father's interference and point of view given that he hasn't gone ahead and mated without your alpha's consent months ago."

"True," Sesshoumaru admitted. Inuyasha could have gone ahead and mated the girl regardless of their father's opinion of the match. Unsanctioned mating wasn't always grounds for expulsion from the greater pack, Sesshoumaru certainly hadn't been ejected upon presenting himself tied to her after all. That Inuyasha hadn't yet spoke to the boy's inherent respect for his father even if he wasn't following Hiroyuki's directive in regards to his love.

"The boy hasn't introduced her to the pack yet though." Such was a sign of seriousness. None of the pack had met the hanyou's chosen female yet. Sesshoumaru wasn't even aware of her name or connections though Taishou Hiroyuki certainly had to be given his objections. Hiroyuki couldn't exactly claim the female was beneath them in class and connections if he didn't know what they were.

"Your father knows her, though," Kagome murmured pensively.

"Hnn, it would be more accurate to say he knows of her," Taishou-san clarified.

"Is she human?" She inquired. "If she is, it is possible Inuyasha thinks he's protecting her until he's certain that she'll be safe when he brings her around."

She could hear him pause on the other end, contemplating over her point. "It is possible. This Sesshoumaru understands that Izayoi had some difficulty upon first integrating with the pack. She was never attacked, but that was most likely due to my father's position at the time and grandfather's support."

"See. Inu are a famously protective breed of youkai. Many humans express a similar trait, though not quite so violently. He's protecting his own," she concluded firmly. She knew a little bit more of the subject than Taishou Sesshoumaru realized, but Kagome was careful to keep that from him. He didn't know she knew Inuyasha personally or that the female in question had gone to the same school she had years ago.

"Perhaps this Sesshoumaru should arrange for all interested parties to meet outside of the clan properties."

"That's being proactive. May I suggest you father's business office?"

"Why there?"

Kagome paused as Bianca wandered into the room in pursuit of beverage. Or so she assumed given the girl headed straight for the cabinet to grab a glass before opening the fridge. The secret miko doubted very much the teenager could speak Japanese fluently enough to understand her conversation, but it was unlikely to matter. The simple fact that Louis-san had not taken his phone snowshoeing with him was enough to make the already suspicious twit even more so.

"How many of your pack usually congregate there?" She returned to his question, there was no reason yet to end the conversation. "If the meeting is held there, your alpha will not be put out of his way," something Kagome had quickly learned was all important when trying to maneuver around the male. "I'm sure your mother and Inuyasha's visit there occasionally so they wouldn't be put out either, if you choose to include them." Which was also important when attempting to include them in anything at all. "The location would be certain to be a private meeting place," unlike any other public venue. "Which leaves only your brother and his chosen. He has certainly been there before, so he knows the lay out and would feel better able to protect what's his in such a place." Very important issue to consider since such was the reason they were supposing Inuyasha wouldn't take his girl out to the Taishou Property. "Unless you personally object to going there," which would be reason enough for her to accept suggestions of going somewhere else. It wasn't like Kagome was going to be there for this meeting to really have a set opinion.

"No mate, it is fine," and certainly more convenient for him given that he lived in the city and stopped by his father's building often to pick up his general mail after allowing his father's people to sort through it for safety's sake. Even though he was no longer on the market and certainly no longer lived the life of a male about town his daily mail was still fraught with all the hazards that had typified his lady killer days. "It is fine," he repeated thoughtfully. It was amazing what could be picked up from simple nuances.

"I suggest talking to your brother about it first," Kagome advised gently. "The whole thing will fall through if he doesn't feel comfortable bringing his love there," she added.

"Too true mate," came his voice to tickle her ear. It was fine with her if he took everything she said and went away to think about it. He was like that about some situations, mostly anything that had to do with his pack. For an inu youkai, a lot about pack relationships were instinctual, analyzing any one connection objectively was not something he could do lightly or easily. Most often, it wouldn't even occur to him to try. "But it shall have to wait until after Inuyasha's current ban on communication before I will even attempt to broach the subject with him."

Kagome giggled softly in surprise, "I'm sure he didn't tell you all forms of communication were out of bounds."

"This Sesshoumaru thinks you are forgetting the type of activities most couples are likely to pursue given social license and time to do so together," his voice lowered into that suggestive rumble he'd taken to using whenever he teased her about re-enacting the events from the night of her attack. She really liked the sound though the subject matter often annoyed her. Mostly because of her usual physical reactions to it.

Like now when she could feel her face flush with embarrassment for not having considered in even an abstract sense just what a healthy young hanyou of her acquaintance was hoping to fill up the hours of his holiday with. Kagome's brain seldom bothered to consider the romantic connotations of the holiday beyond the given fact that couples spent time together. Sango, her last roommate in Tokyo, had called her a late bloomer. Kagome had merely insisted that she was too busy and too consumed with her goals to bother taking such distractions as sex seriously.

Sesshoumaru's chuckle from the other side of the world at her perceived naivete only made her face burn more. She wasn't even going to attempt protesting that Inuyasha and his love couldn't possibly spend the whole of forty-eight hours having sex. Kagome well remembered just how long it had taken to wear out a drunken inu's libido on the night of her first sexual experience. And that was after he'd had a full day of activities. Instead she cleared her throat, trying not to get mad when his laughter increased and debating whether to just hang up to put an end to her torment. The reflection of her scarlet face in the window in front of her wasn't helping either.

In the end, Kagome waited patiently for her inu's mirth to die down and turned her back on the window the better to forget how red her face had gotten. Despite her discomfort with the subject, she couldn't help but smile. It was a rare thing to cause Taishou Sesshoumaru genuine mirth.

"Who are you talking to?" Bianca's demand met her the moment Kagome had resettled herself at the table where she'd left her books spread out in her unsuccessful attempts to study earlier. The sudden inquiry took the older girl by such surprise that the teenager had managed to swipe the phone from her hand before Kagome had a real chance to react. "Who is this? How dare you be on the phone with my Brother's girl and how dare you flirt," Louis's sister rounded on Kagome pointedly, "with some guy when you're with my brother. Is this the reason you didn't go with him snowshoeing earlier? So you could call some other guy you're obviously cheating on him with?"

Now Kagome was pissed. This little twit was accusing her of cheating on a guy that she wasn't even in a relationship with and announcing it within earshot of the male she was. More than that, the brat had taken her phone while she was still using it only to accuse somebody she didn't even know of, basically, home wrecking. For all Bianca knew, the person on the other end of Kagome's call could be female, because Sesshoumaru certainly hadn't said a word yet to identify himself as belonging to one gender or the other. Kagome could have been talking to her mother.

The last thing Kagome ever wanted her mother to hear was false accusations about her being unfaithful to anyone. "Give me back my phone," Kagome commanded tightly.

"Why! So you can continue with your little affair, you whore!"

Kagome nearly growled at the little fool. "I refuse to answer any allegations made without full corroborating evidence from some adolescent mtv watching ignoramus who's so determined to find drama in a situation she fails to collect any facts before throwing around unsupported accusations accompanied by impetuous acts that are both immature and foolhardy." She took a deep breath in effort to calm her seldom riled temper and repeated, "Give me back my phone."

"How dare you call me an ignoramus!" Bianca screeched which was probably the only part of Kagome's speech she'd understood. "You're just angry that you've been exposed for the dirty slut you are!"

"Bianca!" an unexpected voice gasped from the door to the kitchen. Louis-san had apparently returned from his mini-expedition a bit earlier than expected. "I can't believe you would say something like that to a guest in our house."

"It's her fault! She stayed here instead of going out with you so she could call her other lover-"

"Where do you get this stuff?" Louis-san cut her off. "Listen you little drama queen she does not have a second lover, she just has the one. And it isn't me."

"Wha-" the girl gaped, wind effectively taken from her sails. "But you-I mean, Mom and Dad said-"

"I don't care what they said. _I said_ she is not in the kind of relationship with me where she wouldn't be allowed to spend time with whomever and however she wishes. She's just a friend, which is the only relationship that I ever indicated existed," her brother set her straight bluntly as Kagome sat stiffly observing. Normally, Kagome would prefer to let such a conversation be completely private, but as it was Kagome who'd come under fire and no avenue of escape had been forthcoming, she'd decided to quietly sit it out until she could demand her phone back and apologize to Taishou-san for the disruption.

"Then what's she even doing here?"

Or such had been her plan, but Louis was floundering a bit at that question. "Louis-san is dating my roommate. Last year I went with them for the holiday, but this year, my roommate's family went on a cruise and Louis-san and I both could not afford to go. As I would also not be able to go home for the holiday and they both thought it unthinkable for me to stay at school alone, Louis-san invited me here." Her host sent her a discretely thankful look. Kagome had given reason for her to be here instead of his lover without indications that her roommate was male. It wasn't her place to out him if he wasn't ready, even if the whole situation annoyed the crap out of her. "Louis-san had informed me earlier that he desired to snowshoe alone and I had no intention of being so rude as to intrude upon that even if I could stand to be out in the cold that long."

"But-but she called me an ignoramus!"

"And you accused her of being a slut within hearing of her boyfriend with absolutely no grounds for doing so," Louis-san sighed wearily. "I'd say she was justified to term you so. Even I think you were stupid about it. And rude. Give her back her phone and go back to texting your girl friends will you?" Bianca glanced back at the phone in her hand, horror etched into her expression. The girl couldn't give Kagome the phone fast enough before she bolted out of the room. "I apologize for my sister. Why are teenage girls like that?"

Kagome raised an eyebrow that he would have the gall to ask her that.

"Right, I'm just going to go um, stick my foot in my mouth with someone else, now..."

When Kagome was finally left alone in the kitchen again she let out a deep sigh before raising her cell to her ear so she could attempt to salvage her previous conversation and possibly reacquire her earlier good mood before that rather explosive and insulting interruption.

"When do you return to your apartment mate?" Taishou-san inquired abruptly the minute she turned her attention back to the phone.

"Not soon enough," Kagome growled in answer. "If something like this crops up again, I'm definitely going to start dropping names that would be hard for him to explain." His surprised laugh was certainly a good step in reclaiming a calmer, more cheerful frame of mind.


	14. Kryptonite

Since an Anonymous reviewer brought it up this time, I'm going to address it here (again) in seriously specific terms because this is getting so old.

1\. "Why is Kagome so cold to Sesshoumaru?" - I know everybody wants Kagome to love Sesshoumaru already, but you are forgetting that what he did to Kagome to start this relationship is **_rape_**. He robbed her of choice, trapped her for life to someone against her will. She is trying to get past that, but she's focusing more on what her original life goals were. In a way, she's ignoring the main problem to focus on something she feels safer confronting, which is not uncommon. You want her to give him a chance, but the fact of the matter is, just having the phone is that chance. She's stuck and she knows it. She accommodates his instinct because she doesn't want to be cruel, but she didn't volunteer for this. In the chapter where she was attacked, all she wanted to do was sleep. She put up with her roommate waking her up because he would have insisted she stay in the hospital otherwise. If Sesshoumaru hadn't called and needed placating, she probably wouldn't have told him about it at all. Just like she didn't tell her family. They can't do anything about it from where they are and neither can Sesshoumaru. Which leads us to the bond:

2\. "Why doesn't Kagome feel as effected by the bond as Sesshoumaru?" - She does, but her efforts to interfere and block the bond cover it. She doesn't feel empty because she's distracted and busy. She doesn't feel much of anything because she's not emotionally available right now. I know everybody loves the idea that love will happen when it will, blah blah blah, but when the love interest is not emotionally available, that's not going to happen. Kagome is focused on saving lives someday. Being mated to a demon, even against her will, brings that directive a little closer to home because Kagome is unlikely to have children by any other male making it pretty clear that what she's working on _**will**_ apply to her own children down the road. So excuse her for avoiding the issues of now that will keep, and focusing on that long term goal instead, the one that doesn't bring to mind the cage she's been trapped in or the vulnerability Sesshoumaru exploited before he cared to learn anything about her.

To go further, the bond does not have an emotional component. Considering the bond is built from instinct and youki and I've iterated in the story that instinct does not care about emotional or mental compatibility, it looks to breed successfully. In extension of that, it looks to insure - through the bond - that offspring birthed will survive. The roles of the sexes are very defined in nature. Think of birds. The mama bird's job is to sit on those eggs until they hatch. The papa Bird's job is to insure she has no reason to move from that nest: he finds her food and brings it to her, he fights off predators and usurpers, and pretty much insures that mama does not leave those eggs. The roles throughout much of the animal kingdom are fairly consistent with few exceptions. The female nurtures and produces and the male provides and protects. To that end, a mating bond would not care if the female was necessarily happy about the role. Her emotional stability doesn't register. But physical danger is a danger to pups. Therefore, when Kagome insisted she would never allow a bond to tell her how much she wants to be close to Sesshoumaru, she isn't talking about emotional closeness, but geographic closeness. Proximity matters to a bond because it is easier to protect something close than something that isn't. Her interference covers that urge, that drive. So there's even less reason for her to feel anything from the bond when she's interfering with it.

3\. "She needs to be taken down a peg" - Why? Kagome is a person who is coping with a situation not of her making. That she hasn't immediately forgiven Sesshoumaru should not be held against her. If you recall, she never claimed to have forgiven him, she just claimed that she didn't care as long as it didn't interfere with her goals. She also hinted that, while she wasn't immediately suffering from the situation, there was no guarantee that she wouldn't evince some form of psychosis as a result of that event sometime down the line. Kagome's suffering is slightly less overt than what Sesshoumaru expresses frustration about. He suffers from entitlement issues and pack neglect. What she suffers isn't being addressed because the only person she could talk to about it, is the person who caused it. Kagome will attempt to self-diagnose as time goes on, but her success will be limited and vary as she must become aware of what she does in order to realize the problems she's developed. Kagome is doing her best, cut her some slack. She's surviving

Keep in mind that, despite the myths perpetuated by Hollywood and Disney, love doesn't happen over night. Both sides have to be willing to feel it and it has to be built one memory at a time. And before you start trying to rush it, remember you're working with one person who has no previous experience with the process of falling love, being in love or even watching others do so, and one person who _doesn't_ really _want_ to fall in love right now, hasn't the time or energy for it, and really doesn't let people in at all. Both have trust issues about people in general and Kagome has trust issues with Sesshoumaru specifically. Without trust there is no love, because love is trusting that other person to respect your feelings.

Love does not require that other person to love you back. That's one thing that annoys me. Just because you love someone, like them and want to be with them, **does not** entitle you to reciprocal feelings from that person. We are, **ALL OF US**, entitled to love who we want. We are not entitled to act on that love against the object of our affection without their consent. That's when Stalking, harassment, and rape are most prevalent, and sadly Hollywood and Television still promote that sort of behavior. Schools, Fraternities, and other social venues do too. It's call "Rape Culture" learn about it and stop trying to shove Kagome further into a relationship she didn't want but now finds herself trapped in. Let her heal and cope and make decisions on her own. It's going to take time as I keep stressing to everyone in more ANs and PMs than I care to remember. There are no fast cures or special band aids or magic pills. The psyche heals at its own pace under personal direction and can only be assisted by externalizing, by communicating it in some way, letting it out to examine it, handle it, and maybe over come it.

Fair Warning: The next unsigned review to raise the above issues again will be deleted and ignored. I'm tired of addressing it and tired of people closing the avenue of communication when they obviously aren't reading the ANs. I've addressed these issues before. If you sign in, I will try to explain it some more directly, but if you don't, I'm not going to post another AN about it. The people who _are_ reading the ANs are tired of reading about something they've already read in as many different styles as I'm willing to subject them to. They're tired of me preaching to the choir when the ones who don't get it are the ones not reading the ANs.

Calendar: March 2011. The events are based on a real event that struck Japan at that time. I wanted to portray the sort of reaction people with family in the danger zone react to being unable to contact them, the chapter grew from there.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Kryptonite**

A well known jingle drew Sesshoumaru's attention from his ranting sire and caused him to excuse himself discreetly into the nearest empty office available. Most of the offices in the Taishou clan house were sufficiently sound proofed that he could answer his call without fear of being over heard.

"Mate," his smooth voice declared upon allowing the call to connect.

"Sesshoumaru-san, oh thank all that is holy," her voice was equal parts anxiety and relief and her words sent a kaleidoscope of emotion racing through his heart. Joy that she had finally deigned to call him by name. Annoyance that she left on the suffix still. Confusion that she would be so anxious about him. But mostly, he was curious that she had been so worried that she could sound so relieved over his answering a phone. "I'm so glad I reached you."

"I am well, mate, surely you could tell that. Tokyo did not suffer any great catastrophe, nothing like other parts of the country did. I had hoped you were aware-"

"We're not getting anything specific about Tokyo!" her anxiety spiked again. "Just news that Sendai was completely wiped out; they're bracing for impact as far away as South America and Australia. And I can't get a hold of a single member of my family!" she wailed with true upset. If someone else had wailed at him about anything, Sesshoumaru would assume it was more for effect than real feeling unless he could scent otherwise. But he knew how she felt about her family. He knew she called them often and news like this would definitely send her to the phone just to make sure they were safe.

Sesshoumaru hadn't been aware the reports on the Tsunami outside of Japan had been so pinpointed on the areas worst hit. But he probably should have expected other countries to report on only the worst of the situation this soon after the event. Sendai truly was gone. A lot of the coastal towns had also been washed out. There were thousands of school children separated from their parents who may or may not have been evacuated separately. The wave had hit in the middle of the work day when people were busy paying attention to other things. It was a tragedy. But it was still too new, too raw for him to think about it that way.

Despite that, he _should_ have thought about how she would feel about it. She was his mate, he should have made certain she knew how it had effected the area she was most familiar with even if the news casters of the world had managed to be as well informed as Sesshoumaru was.

"Hnn, the wave did not hit Tokyo. The Tsunami was oriented wrong to damage the city," he attempted to soothe her gently.

"But it wasn't just the water, there were quakes," she tried to calm herself if only for the sake of his ears. Sesshoumaru imagined that she was thinking how detrimental to her purpose it would be if he couldn't hear her questions.

"True," he allowed. There had been and still were quakes the largest had been a sizable one on the scale. "The biggest quake registered a little over a seven, but there was minimal property damage due to the required ordinances." Sesshoumaru hoped that would alleviate the rest of her fears.

"Sesshoumaru-san, my family has lived in the same building for many generations. It's a sturdy place, but it's old, built before the ordinances. Even if it still stands completely intact, something could have fallen – a bookcase maybe – and one of them could be trapped underneath. Or perhaps my mother could have been on the stairs when the quake hit and lost her balance. Or maybe my brother could have been riding his bike and lost control and been hit by a car..." her voice began to quiver. Much as he would like to argue the implausibility of most of her scenarios, he couldn't. The city had been shaken and brought almost to a stand still.

Train lines had been shut down for fear of damage to the tracks, cell towers had been turned off from commercial service after being completely overloaded in the wake of the disaster. Parts of the city were even without power. And it was going to get cold tonight. Even if her family had survived the quake itself and the few after shocks that had since transpired, if they were stranded somewhere, they might freeze. He could understand her worry, though he couldn't figure out what she thought he could do to ease it.

"I cannot help you without a name, mate. Much as I would like to for your sake, it is impossible for me to go through the whole of Tokyo and hope to stumble upon people I cannot identify to ascertain their well-being," he murmured calmly, though he wanted to give himself a black eye for this simple truth. Sesshoumaru was actually glad his mate wasn't in Japan today. Her being a world away was a blessing right now.

He heard her inhale deeply and exhale slowly. "I know, but I know a way you can get me the information. Ask your half brother about his Sanctuary Families. He'll know if any of them are hurt and you can relate the ones with injuries to me and I'll know too." She took another deep breath, needing the extra calm as she would be required to hang up and wait for the information she needed. "He's there with you isn't he? Inu packs always gather after a disaster like this, to check in at the very least."

"You know Inuyasha?" he was surprised. Never once had she indicated she knew the hanyou beyond reading about him in the papers. It wasn't important just yet, but he would be addressing it with her later. "Hnn, he is here. The alpha has been lecturing him on his tardiness in reporting to the pack after the quake. He has not been the last to arrive, but he was close enough to it to worry his mother."

"He would have checked on the others first, Taishou-san," he was displeased that she had remembered herself but refused to comment on it as she was obviously managing to calm. "Many of them are human, whereas most of your pack are youkai and more capable of surviving this...situation. He will tell you about it and you will call me later, I don't care when. I...have been excused from classes for the time being. My advisers won't let me go home, but they are helping get some aid together to send your way. I'm going shopping later for my own donations to add and my sibs are already arranging for me and few others to solicit donations on as big a scale as possible in this area. I'll be attempting to keep busy but waiting for your call."

"Is Brett-san there?" Sesshoumaru had a sudden worry about her emotional state. Normally his female was more reticent in expressing her actions and feelings. This sort of thing could completely derail her goal plan if not handled properly. Something her Advisers were apparently already afraid of.

"Um, he is, did you want to speak to him?"

"Give him the phone for a minute, my mate," he coaxed her. He needed eyes to watch her that were both safe and closer than his own.

"Hello, Mr. Sexy-Voice!" the flamboyant male called cheerfully. "What can I do for you?"

"She is overly anxious," Sesshoumaru observed.

"Not overly, but this disaster has certainly side-tracked her for the moment," Brett responded easily. "We're doing our best to make sure it is temporary. No lasting regrets from my super woman roommate!"

"Try to limit her donation to what she can afford," he requested. From what he was getting off his mate, she was liable to spend all she had in order to make the biggest donation possible and starve later for her trouble.

"Already done my worried mystery friend," Sesshoumaru doubted Brett hadn't heard the name his mate had called out earlier, but he was playing at ignorance and the inu wouldn't call him at it. "WE've discussed it and her limit is one cool hundred. And I'm matching her. That's how I managed to limit it of course. I can't go higher. I think we'll stick to bottled water and maybe buy up a lot of rice. It's not interesting, but you can survive off it."

"Hn."

"Shall I hand the phone back now?"

"Please."

"Taishou-san," his mate called.

"I am going now mate. I will find out what you need and call back, know that I am safe and he is safe and you will not be alone in all this no matter what," he rumbled roughly through the last words. They might not have been particularly comforting given they hinted that there was a possibility her family had suffered unduly from the events of the day, but they were the best he could do with his limited information. Gently he hung up the phone and headed back to the den where he could still hear his sire's on-going harangue.

When he reached the room, however, it was no longer the hanyou suffering his father's wrath, rather another errant member who'd chosen to take even longer to check in. Thankful for the small reprieve, Sesshoumaru deftly caught the eye of his younger sibling and gestured back out the door with his chin. Catching the small nod he received in return, he swiftly turned and headed to the front door. He had no desire to remain on the property for the discussion soon to be had. There were too many chances of being overheard and given that the inu had never even heard of Inuyasha's "Sanctuary Families" he doubted anybody else in the pack ever had either.

The boy would no more want to talk about it on the grounds than Sesshoumaru would the subject of his mysterious mate.

"Oi, what do you want?" the hanyou demanded immediately upon stepping out of the house.

"Hn, follow me," Sesshoumaru replied and took off on foot. He lead the hanyou back into the city, racing along roof tops and stationary train cars. The streets were clogged with stranded commuters and pedestrians desperate to find shelter. There were other youkai taking the high route to account for, but the numbers were vastly inferior to the masses on the sidewalks. Somewhere in the middle distance black smoke arose from the city scape.

He was forced to land in order to enter his building as even a youkai of his caliber couldn't reach the roof without a closer launch point and it wouldn't have done him any good if he did as the roof door was locked from the inside.

Sesshoumaru paused in the lobby to allow Inuyasha to catch up before taking the stairs up to the pent house. Pulling out his key, he let the both of them into the space he called his own. It was only the third time the younger brother had been to the place, but it had never looked quite as lived in as it did now, Sesshoumaru mused. Framed displays of copies of his own work juxtaposed against the photographs developed from the many images sent by his mate hung proudly on the wall and his living room was strewn with the evidence of his latest project, a gift for his upcoming anniversary.

It was another semi-traditional courting gift, like the scent box but with a small difference that made it theirs. The traditional path would have him send silks to her family. His mate had little use for silk, given that it wasn't a particularly sturdy heavy wear type of fabric, and her future provided few reasons to wear the customary kimono that had marked the days of distance wooing. He was transferring his art to clothing. The first and only finished piece was a yukata done up in stylized flowers from his family crest and his personal colors. The second was little more than a white silk bath robe featuring a fairly detailed image of her tree. It was probably worth little beyond being used to cover up lingerie prior to pursuing night games which was why that particular part of his project was taking so long. He just couldn't keep images of night games with her out of his mind while working on it.

It was the last piece that meant the most to him. And would probably mean the most to her. The third part of his soon to be gift to his mate was a doctor's coat only, instead of plain white, hers was covered in images of paper cranes launching themselves into flight.

"Oi, when did you become a seamstress?" Inuyasha guffawed inappropriately.

"They are to be gifts to my mate upon our anniversary."

"You know where your mate is?" the hanyou stopped abruptly. "Where is she? Who is she? Does anybody know yet? How long have you known?"

"Stop," Sesshoumaru cut him off. "I do not know answers to any of those questions. I have a general idea of her location at present but that is unimportant. What is important is that I speak with her regularly and she has just called me with a slight problem," he noted the hanyou's shock. "We have been in contact since three days after her marking."

"Keh," Inuyasha huffed as he mulled the information over. "You don't want dad to know?"

"This Sesshoumaru made a promise that the phone would not be used to locate her if she kept it," Sesshoumaru wandered past his bedroom door to look out the panoramic window. Despite the crack running through part of it, you would hardly know the chaos in the city from the view it showed. "He would not have honored such a promise if he knew, and this Sesshoumaru has come to accept that it would be wrong to force her from the path she walks now in order to place her immediately beside this Sesshoumaru when a few years' passage would allow her to pursue her goals and then bring her to me after she has changed the world."

"What's all this got to do with me? Why're you sharing with me?" the hanyou demanded, already aware of just what a close-minded tyrant their dad could be.

"My mate is in a foreign country and unable to contact her family left currently in the city. She indicated that you would know of their well-being."

"Wha-"

"She said something about Sanctuary Families," Sesshoumaru clarified calmly.

Inuyasha's reaction was a string of invectives that the elder inu was certain could peal the paint off a house. After he'd finished with his outburst, the hanyou managed a dry laugh, "Well, at least you can know one thing for certain, if her family is one of them, you caught yourself one of the best kind of people in the world." He offered his brother a small smile.

"What are these Sanctuary Families, Inuyasha?" Sesshoumaru inquired.

"It'd be better if I let them tell you," the hanyou returned with yet another dry laugh. "Come on, I wanted to check back in with them anyway." The boy turned and lead his elder back out of the building and off in another direction, towards yet another congested part of the city. "Most of them will have congregated at one of the shrines. At least all the ones without power or water will have. A couple are stranded away from home, given that they live in another part of Tokyo altogether and were simply visiting the area. One family managed to escape the quake with their entire house completely untouched but likewise completely disconnected from the power and water lines. Heh, Shiori got a little excited. She was with them when the shaking started and shielded the house so completely, it severed all connection with that stuff. It's to be expected though. Her father's family are right jackasses and keep trying to sue for custody from her mother." Inuyasha growled irately, "They just want to use her because nobody else among her living relatives is capable of the barriers she puts up."

Within minutes the two males were at the foot of a long staircase leading up to a quiet shrine. "Keh, come on. Somebody up there will know how best to explain it to you and we can get that information you needed for her." Inuyasha didn't comment on the transparent bubble apparently protecting the grounds but neither did he seem phased by it either.

Inuyasha lead the way up the stairs, taking them three at a time in his eagerness to return to the people who made him feel at home. "Kaa-san, Souta, Ji-chan!" It was strange to hear the hanyou call such people so informally and with such respectful affection. He was completely different among the pack.

"Inuyasha!" a human woman possibly in her late forties called back warmly. "We weren't expecting you to make it back again today. And you brought company!"

"Keh, it's only Sesshoumaru," Inuyasha grumbled begrudgingly.

"Taishou-san," the woman bowed to him politely. "It is a pleasure to finally meet one of Inuyasha's family. Izayoi-sama often donates, but she has never been here."

Inuyasha blushed and Sesshoumaru knew that while Izayoi may donate to the shrine she did so under the influence of her son. "Keh, how is everyone?"

"Mostly the same, though Souta managed to sprain his wrist in one of the storage rooms. Luckily, the Hojo family is taking refuge with us, the head of the family is a medical practitioner, so he was able to patch it up."

"What was he doing in a storage room?" Inuyasha demanded.

"We're trying to make room for survivors," the self-same Souta came up behind his mother, "We've been designated a refugee sanctuary and we'll be getting in loads of school kids separated from their families during the evacuations. We can't just put them up in the yard."

"Inuyasha-kun," a white haired hanyou ran up to him from the side, "Will you help?"

"We're setting up awnings and tents over tables to feed everyone and depending on how long they stay possibly hold classes as well. Jii-chan has the Yamato's helping to set up the generator in back of the house to help with the cooking, but there doesn't seem to be enough hands," the woman explained.

"Is there more I can do, Higurashi-san?" the little girl stared up at the elder female beseechingly.

"You're doing more than enough, Shiori-chan, you saved Hojo-san and his family and that's more than anyone can ask." the Higurashi matron gently soothed the now identified Shiori.

"But you don't need me to do that here," she child protested. "There's already that barrier up."

Higurashi's brows furrowed in some emotion Sesshoumaru couldn't identify before smoothing abruptly. "Then just stay here and help direct our new arrivals to the different tasks that need to be done. Every big project needs someone around to direct things." The little girl seemed to accept that. The woman turned to enter the house, another polite bow and small gesture had Sesshoumaru following after her. "I imagine you're confused. Inuyasha was never very good at explaining things and tried to less and less often as he grew. You have questions?"

"What are the Sanctuary families?"

Higurashi took a deep breath and sighed gently, "The Sanctuary families were started when a group of the local children noted that hanyou were subjected to rather fierce bullying from other children in the city. Horrified by it, as our children knew better than to behave so, they decided that since they didn't care if any one was of mixed blood and their young minds had perceived no real malice toward mixed heritage from their families that they would take in hand every hanyou they encountered and introduce them to a safe haven. mainly the safe havens consisted of each original child's personal home. Some, like with Inuyasha were merely brought to the nearest house to where the initial encounter took place."

"Years passed and the notion spread, there are now Sanctuary families throughout the city offering safe places and calm environments for the hanyou introduced to them to be themselves with immunity. Most latch on to one or another family especially, but all are familiar with several. There are many shrine families involved also. Most of us are very proud to have been drawn into it"

Sesshoumaru was stunned. Not by the existence of their network nor of how it had been started but by the reality that Inuyasha had been persecuted for his mixed blood in the first place. But then, he had always had his own troubles to deal with and was often kept separate from his brother when they'd been younger. "Who was hurt during the Earthquake?"

The Higurashi woman blinked at him in confusion, "Why do you ask?"

"This Sesshoumaru knows a person who is far from home and currently only receiving partial information about today's disasters. She has been unable to confirm her family's well-being. We have a special connection," meaning he paid through the nose to insure nothing like these recent service issues would ever leave him cut off from his mate. "She requested that I ascertain the information for her."

"You have a way to call out?" Higurashi breathed in a rush. "We would be most grateful if you could make calls for us. Many of us have children away at school, some so far around the world it almost feels like another planet. We know they must be worried but with the service being what it is currently we-"

Sesshoumaru held up his hand to forestall any further babbling. "If you would spread the word and convince them to keep the calls brief we may manage to work something out." Certainly it would soothe his mate more if she could hear from her family directly. And if all of them used his phone, he wouldn't be able to tell which was hers.

A strange sort of benefit for an inu to think of, but he knew himself. Despite the fact that he would rather wait to be invited into her life at her discretion, Sesshoumaru knew that if he were given any where near enough information he would hunt her down right now. Besides, if these Sanctuary families were as wide spread as they seemed it only made sense to let them make their calls and then call her later to see if the job was done rather than try to remember the information himself and recite all back to her.


	15. Tsunami Relief

Calendar: Later March/Early (very early) April.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Tsunami Relief**

Kagome wiped a tissue over her already raw nose with an uncomfortable sniff. She was, in a word, miserable and her future only seemed to hold promise of further misery. A cough proved the likelihood of prolonged discomfort as her already sore throat flared briefly into real pain. Post nasal drip sucked.

Being ill in a foreign country was the worst experience Kagome could ever recall. Back home, she'd be surrounded by all the familiar comforts of home with her mama ready to prepare all the soft rice porridge she could want or need infused with leeks for added health benefit. There wouldn't be a pushy roommate insistent on forcing her to consume some strange concoction he was convinced would help her get well and her stomach was certain was poisonous to her health.

In fact, Kagome hadn't even been mildly nauseous until after the offer had been made. Her Japanese stomach just couldn't handle the idea of protein when not feeling well. She'd been raised to reach for rice at the first hint of sickness. The western world habit of reaching for chicken soup just didn't compute.

Kagome was just lucky she wasn't more ill. In the two weeks since the tsunami had hit Sendai and the earthquakes had racked the whole country of Japan beyond Tokyo she had been running herself ragged in a way never tried before. She was attending all of her classes and squeezing in all of her regular studying efforts around her work to send aid and funds to the displaced and injured countrymen back home. Despite her dedication to the task she still felt she wasn't doing enough, she still worried about her family with each daily report of worsening conditions at the Fukushima reactor and the on-going seemingly ineffectual work towards stabilizing the situation.

As if that weren't enough, she was also constantly pouring her reiki into the barrier around her family shrine to soften the effects of the continuing aftershocks. She hadn't realized she was doing it at first. It was blatant proof of her fluctuating control under emotional duress. She always reacted to protect those she cared about no matter the danger that she might be found out.

When Kagome had been informed that the shrine was being protected by a mysterious barrier, she'd realized her error. But she hadn't bothered to retract her power. Kagome was surrounded by youkai so it wasn't a belief that she wasn't in danger of being uncovered for what she was. And the shrine was capable of handling the easing magnitude of the waves of quakes that followed the largest initial ones, as it always had before. In the year and change since Kagome had been in her new university and its home country, she'd witnessed that here individuals with her particular brand of power weren't quite the endangered species they were back home. If she were discovered, nothing particularly life altering was likely to happen. Though it wasn't likely she would be discovered.

That her reiki was manifesting at such a distance from her present location meant that she was technically sending it through her feet and the earth beneath her to get where it needed to go. Only someone who was really looking for the power was likely to sense it. And no one could identify the energy surrounding the shrine as belonging to her without prior knowledge of what her specific power signature felt like. With the reality that Kagome had never actually slipped up this badly before, there was practically no one in the world that could expose her.

More than just protecting her family shrine, when the first reports of the Nuclear disaster building up in Fukushima, Kagome had raised a second barrier to try and scrub the escaping radiation from the air and water expulsed from the site during the efforts to cool and stabilize the reactors. She wasn't alone in her attempts to cut down on the contamination seeping into the surrounding area, there were still some miko alive – though very few and all mated to youkai and terribly worn out by the excess years they had lived. They had limited success as the slowly increasing radiation readings throughout the country could attest to, but it would be worse if they weren't at least trying.

It was no surprise that Kagome had managed to compromise her immune system enough to come down with something. Truly with as much energy as she had been expending combined with her habitual lack of sleep, she was lucky she hadn't caught something worse than a very mild cold. She didn't even have a fever.

Kagome might have been willing to be thankful for that, if she wasn't already so damn uncomfortable. And the more miserable she felt the bigger a grump she became. Which only made things worse, she was usually such a pleasant person to everyone the sudden reversal seemed to require that everyone she usually came in contact with had to comment on it. This naturally irritated her further, but not enough to be completely rude to most of the people she encountered, just more surly, happily insulting them in Japanese under her breath when she would usually be reciting parts of her latest study material.

Right now Brett was her biggest most insulted target with his disgusting threat of dinner. She'd much rather go with Louis's suggestion of dry toast than overly salted meat broth. Bleh.

Kagome prevented a sneeze by wiping her irritated and raw nose. She was tempted to get up and lock her bedroom door, but first she'd have to actually get up and close the darn thing. Moving didn't sound like fun since she'd been forced into bed and threatened with her roommate's cooking.

Before she could send a more potent glare at the door that failed to obey her thoughts and close itself, a disgustingly cheerful ring came from her bedside table. With a prolonged groan that she felt all the way to the bone, she sat up from the over-fluffed pile of pillows and reached for the phone devil innocuously resting there.

"'lo, Sesshou-" her effort to greet him was cut off with a sneaky sneeze followed by a wet sniff. "-maru-san."

"Mate?" the tender growl came from around the world and Kagome moaned in misery. "You are unwell?" He didn't sound surprised. He knew exactly what it took to compromise an immune system as well as she did. Stress, exhaustion, and a failure to eat and rest properly were equally as detrimental to youkai as humans, it just generally took longer for youkai to get sick due to their greater stamina. She was always a little stressed and seldom saw true rest the way she should due to her schooling efforts and chronic insomnia.

The recent situation, being what it was, had only doubled her regular stresses. Kagome had been missing meals as her schedule between classes and fund-raising and efforts to drum up relief supplies for the red cross generally interfered with her customary dinner time. And then she had to work her hours at the coffee bar around all of that as well. Or rather, she insisted on doing it. The more money she made, the more she had available to donate.

She answered his inquiry with another cough before pointedly ignoring the corresponding flare of pain. No need to talk about it further with such confirmation to be had. "How are you?" she asked in a hoarse voice. Congestion and drainage always seemed to have that effect on the timbre of her voice. Not that it happened often. Kagome was generally pretty healthy under normal circumstances, the combination of a healthy diet and immense reiki were a phenomenal defense against common maladies most of the time.

"Hn," Taishou Sesshoumaru murmured thoughtfully, hopefully catching the hint that she needed a distraction from her discomfort rather badly. Everybody else she'd run into today didn't want to talk about anything other than how badly she was feeling. Asking a youkai how he was doing was actually a more valid question since the advent of the nuclear disaster than it had been before. Youkai of every breed were strangely susceptible to radiation poisoning, more so than humans. It wouldn't kill them, but the effects were certainly more acute.

Kagome theorized that the reason for their problem had more to do with the tight connection youkai had to nature and less to do with any failure of immunity. By the same token, most youkai suffered varying levels of chronic health problems since the end of WW2. Every youkai born after the 1940s had developed a little better resistance to the inherent radiation contaminating Japan, but this drastic spike was likely to cause even those few lucky youkai problems.

"Hnn, I am better than most, mate," he finally answered. "I spend much time within the confines of Inuyasha's sanctuary shrine," which she already knew. Kagome suspected that he had picked up that one of the families staying there was hers and as such was staying near them as a way of staying near her. "The grounds seem to be protected from the radiation leaks, more so than the rest of the country. Whomever put up that barrier is determined that the grounds and the people who stay there are protected from everything," he continued gently. "Our alpha attempted to have us followed to see what we were spending all our time on, the fool was stopped before he could ascend the first step and spent several hours putting up a racket while trying repeatedly to enter where he wasn't welcome. Higurashi-san eventually went down to shoo him away from the property as he was scaring away all comers with legitimate reason to enter the shrine. This Sesshoumaru can only surmise that his, that is, the spy, and my father's intent would have proven negative towards the continued operations of the shrine itself. He has not been happy that we refused to remain out at the clan house where we would be forced to be surrounded by our ill pack whilst becoming increasingly ill ourselves."

"Are they alright?" Kagome asked in concern. "Is there someone available to look after them?"

"Hnn, the clan employs many human medical personnel, most of whom are right at present monitoring the members of the clan who seem to be suffering the most from this recent disaster. About three generations back, two of my uncles mated a miko between them. She is working to protect the pack estate when she isn't taking her turn working over the reactor."

"You don't feel a need to be close to your family in case somebody needs you?"

"Mate, I don't even know half the members of the pack. I should have met them in the course of my training as next clan head, but I was never introduced to them. The only members of the pack that concern me enough to worry about are Inuyasha, who spends most of his time at the same shrine as this Sesshoumaru, and the partially senile youkai who poses as my father's father." The older male may be off his rocker, but he was the only member of the pack that treated Sesshoumaru as a child when he was a child. The only one who regaled him with stories of clan history and defunct traditions that now allowed him to court Kagome.

Someday, Kagome wanted to meet that youkai, senile or not. She was certain he would be a fascinating person to know. And maybe she'd introduce him to her own half senile grandfather. She imagined they'd have the most interestingly nonsensical conversations possible. "Why don't you bring him out to the shrine then. It'd probably do him good."

"Mate, grandfather didn't travel well before the disaster. Now, we risk his death if we were to move him for something as simple as a visit to the doctor's office." His tone was patiently even and mildly condescending as if she knew the state of the elderly youkai's health previously.

"Watch it Sesshoumaru-san," she growled grumpily. "We have never discussed your grandfather's health beyond his occasional senility. Dimensia in a youkai does not necessarily constitute any other health issues. I don't have to put up with your patronizing tone right now. In fact, I don't have to put up with-" a sneeze chose that exact moment to interrupt her litany. Hastily she grabbed a tissue and wiped it across her poor, reddened nose. A groan of misery escaped her as the rough texture irritated her already raw skin some more. She was uncomfortable and annoyed and everyone around her only seemed to make it worse.

With a burst of irritated energy she swiped all the extra pillows out from behind her so she could lay back a little more comfortably instead of being forcibly propped up into an almost sitting position. The fluffy things swept to the floor gave her a rather perverse sense of victory. They hadn't been her idea. In fact, Kagome had wanted to camp out on the couch wrapped in a blanket and lulled by whatever old movies struck her fancy. It was Brett who'd insisted she go to bed during the daytime, like she was seriously ill or something.

"This Sesshoumaru apologizes," the inu declared soothingly; which only served to irritate her further. It had been a long time since he'd felt the need to do that at the drop of a hat or the first hiccup of her possible ire in his direction. Usually, she would blow it off or accept his words mildly. Instead, she wanted to yell at him for acting like he was walking on egg shells around her. She wanted to tell him to stop mollycoddling her, she was fine.

Her reaction wasn't typical and the fact that she knew it only upset her more. Kagome attempted to take a deep soothing breath and wound up coughing it all out before she'd even managed to finish inhaling. When the fit finally ceased she somehow managed to growl in frustration without setting herself off again. Perhaps it would be better to just hang up on him and try to read some more. It hadn't proven very effective before, but at least then there wasn't a person present for her to snap at when her irritation spiked over her current situation.

"Mate?" and a damn book didn't panic every time her cold rose up to make its presence known with excessive noise.

Another careful growl followed his concerned question, "I'm fine! I'm not going to choke on my own tongue!"

"This Sesshoumaru never thought you would. I merely worried that you had passed out from the limited amount of oxygen," he placated her with a chuckle.

Kagome snorted in disbelief before racing a tissue back over her face. "I don't have pneumonia, my lungs are not impacted with fluid, your reasoning is not valid," she informed him pointedly with a wet scoff that lead to another string of coughing.

"This Sesshoumaru is glad to hear that. Perhaps I merely imagined that, given your general propensity to miss out on nightly rest, your body may be begging for recuperative sleep and take any steps necessary to force the issue." His observation was certainly realistic based on the information she'd given him and she certainly was tired enough to drop off. If she could get past the worry about her barriers dropping in her sleep, maybe she'd allow it.

"Not likely," she grumbled unhappily, much as she would like to disappear into the land of unconsciousness, protecting her family was more important.

"You need rest, mate," he commented.

"I am resting," she rebuffed him. "My roommate has grounded me from the TV and the rest of the house. If only he would ground himself from my own room I wouldn't have to worry about eating that crap he insists on making. It's only fair."

Sesshoumaru's chuckle rumbled in her ear and she imagined he'd be laughing completely outright if he wasn't afraid she'd hang up on him in an insulted fit. Thing was, she was probably going to hang up on him anyway. The phone was giving her a headache. "Didn't you have classes today?"

"Two of my advisers took one look at me and sent me home. Meddling bunch of -" she trailed off on another sneeze.

"Hnn, only two of them?" he inquired in effort to distract her.

"The other two are currently out of the country trying to find a hospital for me to fulfill my practical medicine requirements at," she answered absently.

"Is the school not already affiliated with appropriate venues?"

"The likelihood that I'll run into hanyou patients in this area is incredibly slim. There are a few mixed species families living in the province, but none have more than one hanyou a piece and most of those are older and less likely to be brought in for medical attention." Kagome explained the reasons. "Hanyou seldom take ill after successfully achieving adulthood. It happens, but not often enough to allow me to get an idea of how to properly doctor general hanyou issues."

"I see," and she could tell he did. "So you will be moving somewhere else next year?"

"Yeah. Strangely, all four of my advisers intend to move with me." Youkai could be fairly nomadic throughout their extended lives. Part of the urge came from a desperate need to combat boredom and avoid becoming stagnant. She really wasn't surprised her youkai advisers intended to travel with her. Thing was, not all of her advisers _were_ youkai. Human Professors had a tendency to remain in one place barring temporary medical tours through needy countries. Once tenured with a school, very few were willing to risk their careers by leaving their established positions.

Sesshoumaru may not be aware of just how great such dedication to her meant, but there was plenty of time to teach him better after Japan had survived this most recent set of disasters.

"What countries are currently in the running?" he inquired hopefully. She imagined Sesshoumaru was hoping she would be back in Japan for her residency. He should know better. Due to the rigors of tradition and youkai instinct, the hanyou population while slowly expanding wasn't particularly high.

"Right now, the front runner is the United States. There are a few cities in the western part of the country with well respected medical establishments and higher hanyou populations than found anywhere else in the world." Her answer was accompanied with a distracted hum as she caught a scent of cooking fowl. Her stomach took the moment to remind her that while it was currently empty and food might sound appealing, what her roommate was planning to offer her would not be accepted gracefully. "It's not a set thing yet though. There are a number of communities around the world that could offer the necessary concentration of possible hanyou patients. It'll come down to negotiations and just what would be required of me to practice medicine in my new country."

"Indeed, international licensing can be terribly involved. You might be better off with the American route. Their medical training is at least recognized in multiple countries about the globe," he advised her reluctantly. Kagome didn't doubt that it pained him to offer advice to pursue her goal further in a country that wasn't his own. They'd certainly come a long way since Sesshoumaru had marked her.

"I was thinking," she began uncertainly. "I know you wanted to study abroad. Couldn't you persuade your alpha to allow you to participate in an exchange program for a semester or a year? He's not demanding terribly much of you lately, can't seem to be bothered with including you in the things he should; surely he couldn't argue with studying elsewhere right now?" It would get him out of the country which would be a boon for his health. "He did give you leave to continue your studies after all." Further proof that the alpha did not need her mate's immediate attention or presence in his business.

"This Sesshoumaru is not certain that such arguments will matter, mate. Right now, his instinct demands he keep the pack together."

"How many pack members were born after World War II?" She asked pointedly. "While it is true that you and anyone else born after the bombs were dropped have been exposed to radiation from birth, it's not quite the same as having been present for the actual bombing. This situation is the same. You and at least Inuyasha do not need the added doses now. Add to that the reality that your father's business has to be looking to expand its potential market, right? Isn't that one of the basic tenets of successful business?"

"To a point, mate."

"Then I'm certain he's already looking into the closest and biggest foreign markets available to him." Kagome added in support of her idea.

"If he is, which this Sesshoumaru has no sure knowledge of, then he already has people cultivating the necessary contacts to make such a move. In such a situation as that, my arguing that point would not hold much chance for success." He pointed out a flaw.

"Taishou Hiroyuki can't possibly be looking in every viable country at once," she argued petulantly. "Your father's company may be rather huge and successful in Japan, but it isn't so powerful that he can afford to support agents everywhere. He's probably looking in China or the Philipines; maybe the United States too. Which is why I was going to suggest Europe or Australia, but if you want to admit defeat before making even a minimal effort that's your prerogative." Kagome kind of growled the last bit, annoyed by his negativity. "You were the one who expressed a desire to study abroad that you'd put off for the needs of your father and his business. He's given you plenty of signs that he's past the need to keep you close sufficiently enough for you to pursue a short term adventure. You could even ask Inuyasha if he wants to try it which would add the need for you to go with him as chaperone, pack mate, minder and protector. Not that he needs one, but his mother might think otherwise." Her harangue wore her out and set her coughing rather violently when she was done.

When finally she'd managed to regain control of her breathing, she was exhausted, achy and cross with him. And her headache was infinitely worse than it had been before.

"If this Sesshoumaru promises to look into the possibility will it make you feel better?"

"Hmmph," she scoffed. "If you don't want to do it, then don't do it!"

"This Sesshoumaru finds it hard to want anything at this moment beyond your improved health," he rumbled apologetically. Now she felt like a heel. Kagome knew how affectionate Inu were with their mates – at least the ones in a semi-healthy relationship. Naturally he would be more focused on her health than on his long ago hope to escape the pen he'd been kept in all his life. Especially when he'd already given up on that hope.

"I'd love to feel better myself," she muttered softly.

"Would you drop your interference?" Sesshoumaru asked timidly. His tone was so far from the teasingly brazen one that he normally used to make such requests that she couldn't bring herself to snap at him about it. "This Sesshoumaru might be able to help you relax and rest."

She nearly snorted at the possibility, but dropped the added effort partially blocking their bond. It was one less thing she was expending energy on. The break itself would probably do her more good than anything he could try. That was the last thought she had before he started to growl deep and low, too low for the phones to pick up, but strong enough for her to feel it through their overly sensitive connection. The next sound to be picked up by the phone was a soft snore.

"Here it is! Darling Roommate, this is just the thing to get you back on your feet! Chicken soup like mom used to make," Brett came cheerfully into the room wielding a tray with a steaming bowl of soup on it. "Baby doll?" he paused incredulously at the edge of the mounded pillow casualties strewn about the floor around her bed. Noting the open phone clutched in her unconscious grip, he carefully set the tray on the night stand and gently extracted it from her fingers. "Hello Mr. Sexy Voice," Kagome's roommate greeted Sesshoumaru. "What is it that you've done to put my normally insomniac roommate deep in the heart of slumber land? I didn't know she had an off switch."

"Hn," the male on the other end of the line rumbled in reply. "It would not have worked if she were not already so desperate for the rest."

"So, there's no guaranteed off switch," Brett sighed. "Well, so long as it works when you really need it to, that's better than nothing. I'm sure she'll be quite annoyed when she wakes, but she certainly needs the sleep. Probably even more than the Chicken soup!" Brett tucked the blankets in around Kagome more closely before carefully lifting the tray and cradling the phone to his ear with his shoulder. "I'd say your little talk has come to an end. Perhaps you can call her later to judge how much better she's doing after her induced nap."

The other male hummed in agreement before politely hanging up.

Brett caught the phone and took it with him to the kitchen. There was no reason to chance it waking up his superwoman roommate. She slept so seldom as it was. He hoped Kagome had pleasant Beau filled dreams given that it was her lover that had sent her dreaming.


	16. Careful Thought

So now we (and Sesshoumaru) have seen Kagome in a grumpy mood because lets face it, nobody is chipper and cheerful ALL of the time without some seriously well managed medications. The sun doesn't shine everyday for a very good reason and rain isn't always cheerful and calming. Sometimes it storms in tempestuous glory. Sometimes it snow heavy and blinding. Sometimes the earth rocks enough to roll. And sometimes the metaphors just need to stop. Heh!

The point is that life is unpredictably predictable, people are faceted and diverse, and interactions can instigate changes in mood that are more negative or positive based on the situation and personalities involved. It's a new experience for Sesshoumaru as I doubt he's spent this much time with any one person who didn't have a real reason to stick around and be pleasant, whether to exploit his own (former) penchant for reckless promiscuity or his continuing ties to Taishou Hiroyuki, wealthy businessman extraordinaire. Any one who was upset around him was usually upset by him and avoiding him for his treatment or wary of his sensitivity to their less than happy state. Let's face it, Sesshoumaru doesn't inspire confidence in his tact or emotional consideration.

I'm not going to say this is the first time he's had somebody grump at him, but it's probably the first time he's cared enough to stick around and put up with it. Go Sesshoumaru! Besides, he took a little more from the conversation than just Kagome's irritation and continuing cold.

Calendar: Late May/Early July.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Careful Thought**

Sesshoumaru stared pensively at his phone, his thoughts rambling along the same paths they'd been wandering for the past two months despite the great calamities, changes, and successes achieved during that time. Japan was saved, though a great deal more polluted and conscious of the nuclear contamination the Tsunami had caused in its aftermath.

Youkai all over the country were sickening in different ways and being advised to head as far north or south in the country as could be if they couldn't leave out right. Except for the various clans lead by fools too stubborn to acknowledge that pack health was deteriorating quickly due to their proximity to the source, most youkai were heeding that advice.

Taishou Hiroyuki refused to even consider moving despite the burn out their clan's miko kin was suffering because of her efforts to ward off the radiation from the estates. The poor thing had even started to lose weight drastically from strain. The alpha may not have been able to see it, but Sesshoumaru did. Even as distracted as he'd been.

Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru spent all the time not taken up by various obligations related to business or school out on the Higurashi shrine. It was apparently the hanyou's favorite home and had been for years. The Higurashi matriarch was seemingly so familiar with his constant presence that she knew all his favorite treats and what threats to use to keep the boy in line. Truly he was like a member of their family and Inuyasha certainly lapped up the attention.

Sesshoumaru, on the other hand, went at first because it helped him feel closer to his far distant and mysterious mate. After the first couple weeks or so, he helped out because he felt better in general. The unexplained barrier seemed to keep out all the new toxins in the air, protecting the shrine and its inhabitants from radiation poisoning, though the only ones likely to suffer it at this distance were those of youkai heritage. There were other reasons of course. He'd actually grown to care about the children stuck there after the disaster. Many still had not been reunited with their parents. The passing of time increased their fears that they never would.

Perhaps it was his mate's concern he was picking up and acting on. Maybe it was a late blooming sense of compassion finding its feet inside his own persona. Most likely, it was just the reality of time spent in their company and learning their individual fears and experiences. It wasn't hard to care about someone you knew personally.

There were nights he lay awake worried about them. Wanting to do something for them but knowing he, personally, didn't have the resources to help them all in the long term tore at him in the dark wakeful hours of the night.

A number of conversations with his mate had passed over the subject. She'd offered to let him adopt up to four if he felt he was up to it. But he knew as well as she did that much as he would like to bring them into his pack, the greater pack wasn't a healthy place for any of these children, whatever their species or breed. With their previous upheaval due to the killer wave and subsequent earthquakes, adopting them into his life when Sesshoumaru knew he was likely going to have to cut all ties with his pack in the future, would likely hurt them more in the long run.

Instead, he tried to help out in other ways.

Sesshoumaru was the one who'd found Higurashi-san the counselors and psychoanalysts those children had needed after being dropped on the shrine. From what he'd heard most of those kids wouldn't be able to even look on an ocean view without adverse reactions for a long time.

That wasn't, however, the true focus of his rambling thoughts lately. As much as he felt for those poor kids, Sesshoumaru's mind was occupied with something else entirely. It was likely a flaw in his personal makeup, but he found it hard to concentration too long on a subject he knew he couldn't really do anything about. While the situation those kids were in wasn't ideal, he knew they were better off under the care of the Higurashi family and their helpers than they would be in his personal custody. He let the subject drop there and instead pursued another topic that was of more personal importance.

Generally, Sesshoumaru, when he bothered to analyze his reactions, believed that his stronger interest in himself proved he wasn't ready for parenthood. He accepted it, but kept his realization from his mate. He was already inferior to her in the ways that seemed to really matter. No need to make it more apparent. He had no doubt that if she were put in the position of being required to mother someone, she'd do it without second thought. It was her nature after all, further demonstrated by the path she pursued and the community service she'd had to insist upon.

Besides, the idea that had him so enthralled was actually planted by her to begin with.

Sesshoumaru hadn't been able to completely drop the subject of studying abroad since she'd first brought it up. Though, to be honest, he hadn't raised it with her again. She'd been somewhat upset that he had completely dismissed it initially.

Sesshoumaru would admit, after further thought on the subject, that she was right to be so. He'd given up on the dream of escaping his father's constant watch under the guise of studying abroad the minute he'd realized he couldn't go for his entire college career. He hadn't even considered that he could go for a shorter period of time once his father's demands were met. And she'd even built in some business reason that might help get the idea past Taishou Hiroyuki.

At first, he'd thought it still wouldn't be successful, but that was no reason to dismiss her suggestion before truly considering it the way he had. At the time, Sesshoumaru may have been more concerned with her immediate health, but he hadn't helped things by riling her up that way. His mate never made impossible demands or meaningless suggestions and he was out of line refusing to take her seriously because she was down with a very mild cold.

Sesshoumaru tapped his phone absently against his knee. She'd actually gotten slightly worse after that, though not terribly bad. It may have just been her illness running its course, but there was still the possibility that irking her like he had may have sent her that way too.

She hadn't raised the subject again, probably determined to ignore it and his unjust dismissal. She was like that. She'd let him stew over things on his own until he decided how he wanted to handle things. Though usually, after a few weeks she'd express curiosity about how something had turned out, but not this.

Then again, he'd never completely dismissed anything she'd said.

If she had bothered to return to the subject of his studying abroad, Sesshoumaru would have told her that he'd made inquiries at the university about the programs available, specifically to Australia. Most of the faculty he'd discussed it with were encouraging him to leap into it. Nearly all felt the experience would enrich him in some way. Even his art teacher had gone so far as to write him a list of possible contacts to help Sesshoumaru further his studies in art. Some were professors at the two schools Tokyo University worked with, the rest were not.

He could have even told her that he'd discussed the possibility with his younger brother as she'd suggested.

Surprisingly, Inuyasha had also wanted to study abroad. Or so Sesshoumaru learned. The boy had even progressed to discussing it with his parents only to be shot down. Where Sesshoumaru had known in advance he wouldn't be allowed to go due to Hiroyuki's desire to introduce his heir to his business associates without even broaching the subject, Inuyasha learned he couldn't go due to his parent's over protective tendencies. The hanyou was the only offspring of Izayoi and Hiroyuki after all.

When Sesshoumaru broached the subject of going now, Inuyasha was only slightly interested. He, like Sesshoumaru, had given up on ever going abroad any time soon. He worried over leaving his girlfriend behind. Sesshoumaru could relate, sort of. If his mate had been present and unable to go, then he wouldn't even consider studying abroad without her. The fact that she was studying abroad without _him_ didn't really signify. He was inu, and inu were naturally affectionate, tactile in private, and possessive of their chosen mates. Inuyasha hadn't taken that final step with his girl yet, but it was going to happen eventually. As such he would be driven to defend his claim against all other takers.

As it happened, Kikyou, Inuyasha's love, was just as interested in a short study abroad as anyone could wish. She didn't even mind that the location wasn't someplace more traditionally romantic, such as Europe. She was fine with Australia, hell she was ecstatic and almost more excited than either male could be. She'd even threatened to go on her own if they couldn't swing it with their alpha. The woman was determined to see the Sydney Opera House or something along those lines.

Kikyou was also somewhat concerned about Inuyasha's continued good health and to a lesser extent Sesshoumaru's. There seemed to be a new food scare every other week. Free radicals were turning up in everything. Even if the whole pack managed to escape the radiation poisoning behind miko and shrine protections, they would still risk their health by eating anything raised outside the barriers erected after the Tsunami hit. Inuyasha was perhaps more resilient due to his human half, but he would still be adversely effected by the exposure.

Whatever the reasons, Kikyou was determined to go, so Inuyasha was ready to go, so that Sesshoumaru might be allowed to go. The University had already communicated that they could all go without losing too many hours of credit. All that was left was to take it up with their alpha and spin it so that Sesshoumaru was going for the purposes most likely to sway his sire. To look after Inuyasha and research the Australian business market. The reality that he neither intended to babysit his younger brother nor forge actual business contacts as such hardly mattered. It was the appearance that he might or that he could that would truly matter in the negotiations he was planning to hold with his father.

Which was why he was sitting on the floor of his penthouse under the panoramic window of his bedroom, thinking at his phone instead of talking on it. Sesshoumaru was trying to decide if he should talk to his mate about the upcoming confrontation he was planning to have with his father or wait until everything was settled after it. He didn't want to disappoint her if his efforts to swing a year abroad failed. But at the same time, he was stressed and inu found comfort and release with their mates.

Granted, the normal way to achieve such was through physical contact, but Sesshoumaru had found in their long time, developing relationship that talking with her was sometimes just as effective. But only if they talked about what had him stressed in the first place. He could call her up and talk about anything else under the sun and find some small amount of peace, but it would evaporate the minute he hung up unless he talked about the issue of the day.

The decision was proving harder to make given that she'd made no hint that she even still thought about the subject at all. He didn't want to bring it up if she was still angry over his reaction to her initial suggestion, but Sesshoumaru wanted to include her in as much of his life as he could given the distance between them. All indicators pointed towards successful resolution of this situation given all the benefit he and his brother would get out of the experience and he feared she would feel left out if she didn't hear about it until after his plans were made and finalized.

She certainly tried to keep him up to date on what was happening in her life. It kept him feeling included and important and a part of everything she did. From studying for her classes to her decisions concerning her community service, she gave him at least the illusion of advising her about them or helping her make decisions. Generally, she listened to what he said and thought hard about it, often thinking aloud so he could hear her thought processes. It didn't happen often. Her life was mostly centered on her goals and the steps she was taking towards those goals.

Very few of her decisions were ones he felt comfortable expressing an opinion over. Sesshoumaru didn't have any greater experience with theoretical medicine and she was beginning to get past the point where he could help her with her studies. Before it had been mostly memorization, cramming all the knowledge of two incredibly diverse species of higher life forms into one head. Now she had to use that acquired knowledge as a jump off point into the un-mappably diverse possibilities of how the two could and would meet in a combined off spring. He didn't have the tools to tell her if a theory she came up with sounded plausible or not.

Given a chance, Sesshoumaru knew his mate would try to explain it to him, but that would only bring him up to where she was currently at rather than help her plan out her next step.

With a sigh, he brought his thoughts back to the subject at hand. Tell his mate about his activities or delay the inevitable until after he knew yea or nay about whether the plans to escape overseas, however briefly, were even remotely likely to happen.

Before Sesshoumaru had the chance to ponder the matter further, the idle device in his hand came to life. _She was calling him_. It wasn't completely unheard of for her to call him first, but it was a rare enough occurrence to seem a special treat when she did. Though, to be perfectly honest, the rarity had more to do with his impatience to talk to her than because she was avoiding him.

He didn't bother to let it ring a second time. "Hello?"

"Is something wrong, Sesshoumaru-san?" she asked gently. "You're about three hours late in calling." Sesshoumaru glanced over at the digital clock glowing at him from the night stand beside his bed across the room. "I normally wouldn't notice, but you did say you were going to call."

He hadn't realized so much time had passed while he wallowed in indecision. "I am fine, my mate," he replied smoothly. "Did you worry?"

"Well, yeah," she answered baldly. "Radiation levels will never be back down to where they were any time soon and most financially able youkai are leaving the country in droves just to regain a modicum of good health. For all I know, you took sick and were unable to call because of radiation poisoning."

Sesshoumaru was tempted to chuckle, except she wasn't exaggerating. The longer youkai stayed in the country the worse their health got. Tokyo alone was suffering from a flux of randomly collapsing youkai as it seemed each had an unknown limit for exposure. Once reached, an individual just shutdown completely, seemingly without warning.

Still, it warmed him that she worried even though it shouldn't. His mate cared for many and worried over all of them. It didn't make him a special case. But he felt like one even so. There were no others who knew her quite as intimately as Sesshoumaru did after all.

"This Sessshoumaru is doing remarkably well, given the circumstances," he assured her. "As is the hanyou you probably don't need an update on given your prior acquaintance."

"Don't be like that," she scolded him. He was fairly certain she was getting rather tired of Sesshoumaru bringing it up, but he couldn't let it go. Inuyasha knew who his mate was in person. Oh, not specifically.

Inuyasha couldn't tell him which of the massive number of individuals involved in the sanctuary families she was. While most of the parents had remained in their homes where they had established themselves after reaching adulthood, nearly all of the former children who'd started the group had spread far and wide. There were too many to narrow down the field to even her species which he still didn't know. The information she'd given about her family, what he could remember of it, didn't help him much either. There were a large number of families in Tokyo that lacked one parent or the other and of those that were missing the correct parent, most had one girl and one boy child and lived with their grandfather. Most families packed several generations into the same home simply to help offset living expenses.

"It may surprise you, Sesshoumaru, but I knew you before our mating too. We had met," she pointed out. "We may not have been formerly introduced, but we had met." Which didn't help him because Sesshoumaru met a lot of people he didn't remember. Thankfully she changed the subject, "So what were you doing that you failed to notice the passing of your favorite hour of the day?"

"Thinking," he declared shortly.

"I see," she acknowledged his word and tone with a thoughtful hum. "Perhaps I should hang up and leave you to it."

"There is no need mate. This Sesshoumaru was laboring needlessly over a decision to be made," he replied hurriedly. He hated when she threatened to hang up for any reason, though it didn't affect him as much as it used to. Experience had taught him she very seldom followed through with that particular threat. "Your timely call could in actuality be construed as an indication as to which way this Sesshoumaru should handle the issue."

"Oh?" her tone was mildly inquisitive, expressing an interest without pressing him to explain more than he was willing to. "I didn't think you were the type to look for omens and signs."

"This Sesshoumaru is like any individual having difficulty making a decision in which the result is inconclusive and chancy: willing to take direction from anything that comes along." He offered in explanation. The decision wasn't major, but it could turn out any number of ways. The bigger more important decisions he made with all due seriousness and consideration, but this was hardly likely to make or break his life or even end his mating which meant more to him. It was only difficult because he cared about how she would react, how she would feel in reaction to the timing of his full disclosure. And her calling him in the middle of such thoughts was an acceptable variable to consider in his opinion. It proved she'd worried which proved she cared and thus indicated that she would likely react negatively to having him delay his communication. It wasn't as if Sesshoumaru was planning it as a surprise for her. "Given that the unspecified decision regards you in a small way, this Sesshoumaru believes it is allowable to take your timing into account."

"Something to do with me?" her musical voice all but cooed. "I am breathless in anticipation. So what about me?"

"Hn," now that it came to the point, he was at a loss of how to begin. While he'd been debating over whether to tell her now or later, Sesshoumaru hadn't thought to consider how to convey the information. Oh well, might as well come strait out and state the situation. "This Sesshoumaru took your suggestion to look into a shorter foreign study program than the originally thought of full degree course plan. I have even discussed such with Inuyasha," he paused momentarily.

"And?" she encouraged him blandly to continue. Her tone gave nothing away as to her personal thoughts yet. It was something she did occasionally when she knew he was having difficulty communicating something.

"And it seems doable. Inuyasha is willing and the university was enthusiastic. All that is left is to argue it before the alpha," Sesshoumaru concluded as though dragging compliance out of his sire wasn't going to be an epic battle rival to any large scale war detailed in the history books. She already knew Taishou Hiroyuki required careful handling when trying to get him to do something he didn't think of first. Her suggestions over the introduction of Inuyasha's beloved to the important members of the pack proved that. "We have already made an appointment with him for tomorrow morning."

"Have you given him any idea as to what he's up against or what this meeting is going to be about?" she asked him without commenting on the reality of being required to schedule time with his father. Such was old news, Hiroyuki was a rather successful and in demand businessman. Only Sesshoumaru's current plans were a divergence from the norm. It was obvious to him she was carefully collecting information about it without giving away any hint of how she saw the situation.

"No, mate," Sesshoumaru replied hoping that using the word for what she was to him would help him grasp some tangible idea as to what her real reaction was. "I don't intend to tell him. If father knew what it was all about he might call in reinforcements," meaning Inuyasha's mother and Sesshoumaru's own dam. Izayoi would use female histrionics to guilt her son into giving up the scheme as she had apparently done before. His own mother wouldn't even attempt such nonsense. No, she would attempt to shame him instead. It had not been attempted in a long time, mostly because Sesshoumaru had long stopped asking for anything years ago.

"That's probably for the best," his mate agreed mildly. "So what was the decision you were pondering over so deeply?"

"Hn, whether to tell you about it now or after the confrontation with my father," he rumbled quietly. "This Sesshoumaru realizes that dismissing your suggestion so quickly without serious consideration upset you greatly. I am sorry for it."

"I wasn't upset really," she sighed. "I was more frustrated. It's one of the great differences between you and I, Sesshoumaru-san. You gave up. I couldn't understand how something you wanted so badly was something you could give up on so easily. I mean, when I realized that I couldn't achieve my goals at the university I originally went to, I adjusted my plans to reach them another way. I applied to many other programs hoping that one would take me on, that one would be curious enough to ask why. And one did." His mate made some small adjustment on the other end of the phone, he could hear it in the rustle of cloth and the change in her breathing. "Whereas, when you realized that you couldn't go away for the entirety of your schooling, you wrote off any possibility of going instead of thinking, "well maybe sometime in the future the situation will change" as I would have done. I thought maybe you just needed someone else to encourage you to modify your approach or just to make an alternate suggestion that achieves the same thing. And then the tsunami hit and..." the sigh she heaved was weary, "I thought if you still wanted to go, this would be the most opportune time to talk your father into it. I mean you could even play the health card and I can't imagine a parent who wouldn't want to send their son someplace far away if it would protect their health."

"Well, this Sesshoumaru has taken your suggestion," he was unwilling to disappoint her again. Her point was valid and while, usually he didn't care enough about anything that was difficult to achieve to really try for it after hitting a roadblock it was clear that she did. In this one instance though, Sesshoumaru was determined to see it through. If he went away, he could pursue his art a little more openly. Inuyasha already knew about it in a peripheral sort of way, but his father did not.

So far all of his supplies and the classes themselves were paid for by his personal allowance so it wouldn't show up in any of the paperwork Hiroyuki would see. But he was getting a bit more serious about it which would make it more difficult to keep it from the alpha's purview. Not that he would give it up if ever it did come to his father's attention. He was enjoying his artistic endeavors and his teacher was impressed with him also. Besides, it took his mind off the things that bothered him from day to day and when he set his pencil down with a drawing in front of him whatever its state, it gave him a sense of accomplishment. It wasn't a major feeling. He didn't feel on top of the world most of the time, but he was generally pleased with himself for at least a few hours after each class or foray made into sketching on his own.

And he had his mate to thank for that as well. It was her suggestion to look into it as a hobby after all. "This Sesshoumaru can promise you, mate, that there will not be any giving up over this again."

"Well it's certainly less likely this time around given it wouldn't just be yourself you'd be letting down. I've heard that a certain hanyou and his girl are really excited about going," she teased him.

"You knew?" he accused her, slightly amused rather than angry. Sesshoumaru would have felt very differently about it before she'd imparted her view of his dismissal when she was ill.

"I might have heard it through the grapevine," she admitted. There was a note in her voice that made him wish fervently that he could see her face and the expression on it. "Actually I was surprised you hadn't brought it back up again once you'd changed your mind."

"I was expecting you to bring it up, mate," Sesshoumaru returned. "I worried that the reason you hadn't was because you were still upset over it."

"So we were both silly, but it's all fixed now."

"Hn, so how are you doing mate?" Sesshoumaru made the same inquiry he'd made in every call since her illness.

"I'm fine," she replied promptly. "Brett-san insists on taking me home for a few days during the two week break before autumn classes start up and Ginta and Hakkaku have talked me into chaperoning a day camp for their younger pack mates. I'm not real big on camping out in the woods so this should be interesting even if it _is_ only supposed to be a day camp. The last day of camp is an over night stay for the older kids which I'm expected to stay for."

"And the brat? Will he be attending as well?" he couldn't help but ask. Sesshoumaru didn't for one moment think the immature wolf would actually be successful making a move on his mate, but he knew she was likely to stress over the unwanted overtures.

"Happily, no," her laughter tickled his ear. "And the Big Brothers, Big Sisters organization has taken Kouga out of the equation entirely with the complete permission of the local pack. I believe the pack will be sending him off for some special training somewhere far distant for about the next year, which means that I'll be gone by the time he comes back."

"Congratulations!" he couldn't help but share in her mirth over this subject.

"Good things are happening all over," she indicated his own efforts with her words. "So are you all set to win your freedom, however temporary?"

"Definitely."


	17. Down Under

I received an Anonymous review this last week that rather amused me for two reason. The first thing that tickled my funny bone was that the reviewer required _eleven_ _chapters_ to decide they were bored with the story. Then they decided they _had_ to tell me so. I don't know about you, beloved readers, but if a fanfic bores me, I just stop reading...long before reaching a full eleven chapters (unless it's a drabble story, then it might take me that long). And if I decide to stop reading, I don't bother to announce it. *shrug* I'm of the school that had Thumper repeating "If you can't say something nice..." in Bambi. Whereas in this case, it was writing and posting on the eternal ether of the internet, but there we go.

The second thing that sparked a slight twitching smirk-like smile (channeling a little Sesshoumaru on that expression) was the statement that there was "no romance" at all in the fic to that point. Now, I wasn't aware there was a cookie cutter definition of romance to be referred to, that there is a universal one-size fits all romantic situation that can't be altered or deviated from in order for something to be defined as romance. Because there are no two people in the WORLD who will agree on what exactly is romantic. For some (as promoted by Valentine marketers) it's a vision of chocolates and scented candles. But what if, like Sesshoumaru, you are allergic to chocolate? What if perfumed anything makes your eyes water? Remember, that the Valentine chapter was in the first eleven. While the end result might have been a big fight, Kagome baked Sesshoumaru a cake and packed him gifts that _he _could enjoy_. _Remember the Anniversary chapter was in the first eleven. I'm pretty sure the Scent box was romantic too.

Most couples will tell you their most romantic evenings were simply quiet ones spent alone with each other, not necessarily doing anything. Some people like to watch the sunset together, holding hands and breathing deep. Some people like to cuddle up in front of a fire place and read to each other. For some, romance is watching their partner tend the baby for a while. For others playing out a secret fantasy or role play can achieve the same depth of contentment. Some people enjoy a three course meal at a fancy restaurant while others prefer more athletic pursuits. the point is that romance can take many forms for different people at different times and is only defined by an unobtrusive (or at least consensual) display of affection in which the enjoyment of the other takes precedence, proof of cherishing that person for being that person.

Romance is not sex. It is the foreplay to foreplay that will not always lead to sex. It most often does in what passes for Romance Novels these days because sex is easy and like any marketer today will tell you, it sells. But sex is just a biological urge, shared with all living things on the planet that requires more than one parent to procreate. I'm sure rape survivors and sex workers would also agree that sex is not romantic in and of itself. We make the romance via other actions out side of sex because we are capable of more. Our lives are not driven by the need to continue the breed like other animals in the world. We have brains with which to think and experience our environment and we communicate on a more complex level than most of the more intelligent creatures that live beside us. Why then do we short change the reality that relationships and romance will be built more on our ability to communicate with each other than the pleasures derived from bumping uglies (euphemisms are awesome!). Why is it so impossible to consider a series of phone conversations and an exchange of gifts on par with "Sense and Sensibility" or "The Fault in Our Stars". Which is not to say I think I'm that good, but it is to say that both books were about conversations and communication and clicking with someone who matched understanding. True romances regardless of the endings. (The second ended sadly but in no way negated the romance of the book.)

I feel sorry for the anonymous reviewer who saw no romance in the first eleven chapters. I wonder if they will ever find the very limited range of circumstances they require to perceive a situation as romantic more than once in their lifetime. I certainly wish them no evil (for it would be a waste of an evil wish - I _sooo_ went there). They are entitled to their opinion and I hope it makes them happy.

Calendar: Late August/Early September.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Down Under**

Sesshoumaru stared out on the sun drenched scenery that passed by the bus window with muted wonder. He'd been here for almost two months and he still couldn't believe his father had let them go. It was almost surreal. Everyday he half expected a call from his alpha demanding they return to Japan. The possible reasons for such a reversal of Taishou Hiroyuki's decision ranged from temporary insanity for allowing them to go in the first place to the more reasonable chances that their father found out Inuyasha had brought his girl with him.

The boy hadn't told their collective parents that Kikyou would be joining them in Australia nor did he inform them that she would actually be living in the same flat.

Sesshoumaru wasn't planning to snitch on the duo himself. There was little reason to believe the alpha wouldn't call them all home the minute he heard of it. He _had_, however, told his mate.

Besides wanting to be certain his mate wouldn't hear his named linked with Kikyou's through some other source, Sesshoumaru had wanted to let her in on the fast one they were pulling on their alpha. It was a grand irony and one he figured she would enjoy. He hadn't expected her to laugh at him uproariously. Her reaction had mystified him. She'd refused to explain her humor then. Two months later, he more than understood it.

Sesshoumaru had been on his own since before graduating high school. Most inu preferred to live with the pack for security and comfort. He was no exception, though he'd survived without it for many years. While he'd lived alone, he'd mourned the loss of closeness with other inu but apparently he'd lived alone too long. It was a strange experience reacquainting himself with the nuances of living with others again.

There were things about living alone he hadn't realized he enjoyed until they were suddenly taken away. Not that the Hanyou and his love were bad flat mate's.

Kikyou did most the cooking as she was the only one of them who ate more than just meat. Inu weren't strictly carnivores, but they did prefer a more protein heavy diet than was healthy for a human. It was pleasant to have someone else around to tend to such domestic tasks. The down side was that Kikyou could get a bit...testy if he failed to attend one of her prepared meals and didn't somehow let her know about it before hand. Sesshoumaru didn't understand why. She cooked the same whether he was there or not.

The common living areas were kept mostly clean by joint effort. Which was proving to be a sort of unexpected issue. He'd had a cleaning service in his apartment in Tokyo, and there was no one to complain if he left his things in places other than his bedroom. It was a revelation that Sesshoumaru was such an untidy person without it. It wasn't that he was messy, it was just that he wasn't quite used to keeping his personal materials confined to such a small space.

Despite the fact Inuyasha was a regular slob and terribly reluctant to help with even the smallest menial chores (especially washing dishes), Inuyasha was mostly a considerate roommate. It helped that he kept the worst of his messes contained in his own room, something Sesshoumaru was certain the boy had learned from living with the pack.

Kikyou was almost anally neat by comparison. Sesshoumaru had come home from class once to find the woman straightening the slats in the blinds over the kitchen window. Which was only odd in that the blinds were open and half raised from the sill. She was the reason they had real cloth tea towels and matching pot holders. It was a little creepy the way she was about things like that.

The greater mystery was how she could be that way and still manage not to fight with Inuyasha to a greater extent. They did still fight a great deal. The surprise was in the fact none of their fights lasted longer than they did.

One issue with their living arrangements arose from the fact that Kikyou and Inuyasha were sharing sleeping space – though sleep was hardly the only thing they shared in that room. The two were quite amorous and most of their more explosive fights, meaning the ones that weren't just about Inuyasha's habit of dropping his clothes all over their bedroom floor, were generally resolved carnally.

There were drawbacks to having such enhanced senses. Especially when renting an apartment. There were special materials, insulation intended for use in buildings that would house youkai tenants. Such were generally more expensive and a body had to be "in the know" and capable of visiting a potential residence before signing on and moving in to get them. Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha had neither luxury when arranging the transfer to Australia. Which meant that Sesshoumaru was privy to each occurrence of physical intimacy by scent and sound. It was incredibly uncomfortable in far too many ways. The couple was loud. He really didn't want to know when his much younger brother was rutting with his soon-to-be mate, but moving out on his own wasn't an option.

In order to insure that Sesshoumaru was babysitting Inuyasha properly, Taishou Hiroyuki had insisted on a few provisos. The first was that the two brothers share the same living space. It was a non-negotiable point their father had stipulated before granting permission for their scheme.

Sesshoumaru hadn't minded and completely understood the other reason for it, in theory. It was unhealthy for an inu to live completely alone and Inuyasha was still prone to rash behavior.

Sesshoumaru hadn't chosen to expound on the issues he was having living with his brother to his mate yet. He feared she would take it the wrong way somehow, or merely laugh at him some more. He wasn't in the mood for more laughter.

Today, would be the first day Sessshoumaru, Inuyasha, _and_ Kikyou had nothing planned and no classes since moving in. Normally, one or more of them had some class related activity to pursue on their days free of lectures. Study groups in the library, cram sessions before tests or, in Inuyasha's case, extra tutoring in English. The hanyou's grasp of the language was proving a little insufficient for his class load. Kikyou tended to sit in on those sessions since the assigned tutor was a hyper kinetic human female who didn't properly respect Japanese personal boundaries.

Today however, there had been nothing scheduled and Sesshoumaru had little doubt as to how his roommates were planning to spend the day given that they had driven him from the flat at an early hour. He had left in such a hurry he'd only bothered to grab his keys, wallet, and phone before stepping out to escape the discomfiting reality of his little brother and Kikyou's overly dramatic vocals.

Sesshoumaru vowed that, in the event that he actually met back up with his mate, their future room would be built as solidly soundproof as possible. Partly to preserve the privacy of their coupling, but more to insure that he was never subjected to somebody else trysting ever again. It _was not_ a turn on.

At loose ends of how to spend his free hours outside of his apartment, Sesshoumaru had paused to check their joint mail box to see if there was anything worth while in it.

Their box was often filled with random flyers and obvious junk on its way to the trash bin, but occasionally they did get an honest to reality piece of mail sent to one of the three of them. Taishou Hiroyuki and Izayoi would sometimes send little care packages for Inuyasha filled with random nonsense Sesshoumaru had never seen the boy pay much attention to. Mostly because the crap they sent would be more appropriate for a younger boy with other interests. He wouldn't even go into the ill-fated packages filled with the omiai materials. Inuyasha had burned them up in the kitchen sink and spent the better part of a week soothing Kikyou's hurt feelings.

Kikyou's parents sometimes sent her linens and perfume samples. Her family manufactured designer scent products. Apparently his brother's female was working towards becoming a key member of their research and development team. Though how Inuyasha could survive such potent mixed scents was beyond Sesshoumaru. He'd accidentally gotten a nose full one day last month and been laid out with a headache for two days.

Sesshoumaru's mail from home was typically as ill-suited to him as Inuyasha's was. Mostly because it came from his father demanding in rather brusque terms for a report on the brothers' activities and progress towards building worthwhile business contacts. Generally, he pretended they got lost in the mail and Inuyasha did the same when asked. Perhaps it was dishonorable to impugn the Australian postal service, but Sesshoumaru couldn't bring himself to care.

Luckily this morning had produced an unusual piece of mail none of them could have anticipated.

Sesshoumaru's art teacher in Tokyo had sent a parcel and asked him to deliver it to an address some ways out side of town. Apparently, Juuro-sensei had spent part of her youth in Australia and left behind a number of friends, but this one alone did not receive commercial mail in a timely manner. Normally he would scoff at such a request, but the timing was impeccable. A trip to the country around the city was an incredibly welcome diversion.

Hence the ride on a public bus.

Neither Inuyasha nor Sesshoumaru had bothered to go through the process required to obtain an Australian driver's license. Both had believed the legal hassle required for it wasn't worth it for the short amount of time they would spend in the country. Inuyasha's nose wasn't terribly sensitive to the various human odors, a body would have to remain unwashed for several days before the hanyou would have a serious issue with them. So naturally he had no issue with using public transit.

Sesshoumaru normally avoided the city buses, his senses were certainly sensitive enough to be bothered by the mere residual scent left by all the bodies before him. But he'd been fine with not driving everywhere given the close proximity to just about everything he needed for both classes and food.

Kikyou had a car and a license at Inuyasha's insistence. She occasionally had classes in the evening without either brother available to escort her hither and yon. It was simply safer for her to drive herself on such evenings.

Sesshoumaru had believed he could withstand the use of city transit on the rare occasion that he needed to travel beyond the city limits. The bus would take him within a few blocks of where he was legally allowed to run at a decent speed. A little bit farther out, he could even shift to his natural form for the release it offered.

The bus coming to a stop brought his attention to the present and allowed him to disembark from the noxious vehicle into the relatively quieter suburban region found on this side of Brisbane. Sesshoumaru would travel under his own power from here on out.

A slow jog through the quiet morning air that cloaked the residences this far from the city hub helped to warm him up for the long run ahead of him. This "Max" character lived deep in the hills and while it was no hardship to run the small parcel out there, it was a longer run than Sesshoumaru'd had leisure for in the last few months even before leaving Japan.

The release of stresses and power would feel good and the reality that his run had a direction and purpose couldn't detract from that simple fact. Honestly, it was probably better that he had a destination in mind. Aimless wandering was better performed in country he was already familiar with. Just because something was legal didn't mean it was necessarily safe. The terrain held dangers in and of itself without considering what might happen if he accidentally trespassed too close to some overzealous home owner's property. Being shot wouldn't kill him, probably. But it hurt like a bitch.

About thirty minutes out of town, Sesshoumaru came to a stop at a little building that amounted to a simple changing house for youkai. While running in natural form was allowed, public nudity certainly wasn't encouraged. In order to accommodate their youkai citizens, the Australian government had built such little wayside establishments to facilitate a smooth inoffensive transformation. Otherwise, Sesshoumaru would have needed to bring a spare set of clothes.

Sesshoumaru's understanding of social rules in his new country may be a bit shaky, but he knew it wasn't a smart idea to approach some unknown person of any breed wearing nothing but his own fur. What if he had to answer questions or identify himself? Youkai may be powerful and greatly attuned to nature, but that didn't mean they had a way to communicate across species from the wrong form. His words stayed in his own head without the proper voice to dispense them.

He didn't know if it was the time of day, day of the week, or if Sesshoumaru was just lucky, but he had the little changing house to himself. The small one room building contained lockers for valuables and clothing, but he had no intention of using them today. He'd brought his special pouch along for this errand and, glancing over the cheap lockers, decided he always would. Three separate cubbyholes were jimmied open proving how easy it was to break into them. As if even the weakest youkai weren't capable of simply ripping the doors off with his bare hands.

He stripped down to the skin with a swiftness Sesshoumaru had never felt the need for in Japan. Part of that was because his time to run always took place on private property, but most of it was due to the incredibly aggressive female responses he'd received while _fully clothed_ in this country.

The changing rooms were utilitarian and unisex. Something Sesshoumaru was sure wouldn't be a problem for most youkai of either gender whatever their breed. But most youkai weren't the specimen that he was.

Which wasn't being conceited really. Sesshoumaru was heir to a fortune and that information had somehow managed to follow him across the sea. He shouldn't have been surprised. He'd been completely blindsided the moment he'd stepped on to the tarmac at the airport. The signs were in English and the screaming had been crass, but there was no mistaking what a number of his surprise welcoming crew had wanted with his body on Australian soil.

Sesshoumaru didn't know why he'd thought the fact he was the Taishou heir wouldn't have preceded him the minute the public got a hold of the information that he planned to study abroad, but he should have. While Taishou Hiroyuki's business wasn't yet global, it was international and playboys, even boring playboys who had completely given up their bad boy ways were always international. People loved to hear about the wealthy, good-looking, and young especially if they were prone to misbehaving as badly as he'd been. The fact he'd recently been so prone to sleeping alone only increased the appeal.

It didn't matter that he wasn't that way anymore. The fact was, he used to behave that way and the public speculation was that, now that he was away from home, he would be that way again. To that end, his first day of school had seen him assaulted by three different very eager, hopeful, would-be lovers. The first week had seen him on the receiving end of so many come ons, confessions and invitations to have wild sex that he hadn't been able to approach any of the recommended art teachers Juuro-sensei had suggested. He still hadn't. There'd be no peace for him if anybody found out he had the "sensitivity" to be an artist.

He'd kept on with his sketching, but he wasn't advancing in his art. Sesshoumaru wasn't learning anything new and it was beginning to frustrate him something awful.

Sesshoumaru stuffed his clothing, phone and the parcel from Juuro-sensei into the sling he quickly slung around his neck before shifting to stand on four legs, silver fur glinting in the slowly increasing sunlight. With deliberate movements, he paced out the wide door built with a mind to allow the coming and going of any number of odd, inhuman shapes. Under the shade of a convenient tree he stretched luxuriously to help loosen muscles he hadn't used properly in far too long.

Sesshoumaru followed the road. Juuro-sensei was human and hadn't known any other way to direct him and honestly, any other way would have required he remain in his human form with his phone out directing him to an obscure GPS location. This way he could take in the scenery, familiarize himself with the territory and happily bask in the growing heat of the sun on his fur.

The paved roads quickly gave way to packed dirt, filling his nose with the dry scent of baked dust and waving grasses. The vegetation was still green for the time being, but it was just getting in to the summer season in the southern hemisphere. A few more weeks and only the trees would be holding any green, and that would be a great deal duller than it was now. Japan did the same thing, only at a different time of year. Right now was a transition season, Australia was going from Winter to Summer whereas Japan was going the other way. In some ways, it was a big adjustment. In others, not so much.

Eventually, he found the address he was looking for, though the place certainly wasn't what he was expecting. That is, there wasn't a visible place there at all. There was a drive that went nowhere, the entrance to which was lined with two old Volkswagen buses painted a stark pewter gray. They appeared to be almost made of stone and incredibly more solid than any car on the road. The metal things stood like sentinels guarding a road that failed to extend beyond the length of them.

But he knew it was the right place. The address Juuro-sensei had sent him was carved into the front of one bus clear as day. Under the meticulously cut numbers, protruding slightly from the rough, cement like surface, rested a round gray button, not unlike a door bell type of device.

Lacking any other options, Sesshoumaru retreated to an overgrown copse of trees to revert back to his human form and dress before re-approaching the mysterious buses and pressing the button cautiously. The next moment the ground at his feet began to rumble violently and the buses shook and groaned with strain as the ground between them seemingly ruptured and presented him with the rising platform upon which stood a wizened old man with a particularly annoyed expression.

"Well? What do you want?" he grumped at Sesshoumaru, clearly uncaring of who the inu was or what purpose he had beyond the fact that it had dragged the underground dweller to the surface.

Without a word Sesshoumaru produced Juuro-sensei's package and summarily decided that the next time she asked for such a favor he would tell her to do it herself. He didn't need this kind of aggravation. With that thought firmly in mind, he turned to leave only to be brought up short by the rude little man addressing him once again.

"Where do you think you're going, hmm?" the puny male had the gall to glare up at Sesshoumaru, still clearly annoyed by the interruption of his day. "Get over here already! Don't they teach you kids any manners? Coming out here uninvited with letters of introduction from teacher's too ill-mannered to handle a task personally...Watch your hands," Sesshoumaru was warned as the grump pushed a button on the pedestal controls in the center of the platform. The rumbling began again as they descended in to the earth.

This time Sesshoumaru was aware of why the buses groaned in that protest of working metal. The engines to power this fancy front door were encased by the Volkswagen shells, hiding what would otherwise be a relatively greater eyesore on the landscape. The floor didn't drop very far, no more than a single story really, coming to a noisy rest once the doors overhead slid shut. The bright sunlight was cut off abruptly leaving the inu waiting uneasily for his eyes to adjust.

"Company, Maxwell?" a feminine voice called from his left and Sesshoumaru turned to take in his second host now that the old man had been identified. Sesshoumaru's golden eyes took in the female's features carefully. Her hair was a peppered gray that indicated it had been some darker color once upon a time, proving her age though her skin was almost flawlessly smooth. She was a petite, rounded thing that barely rose to his breast bone. Feminine in her way, but certainly not a type to have ever turned his head. Feline youkai, even if she was only partially so, set his teeth on edge in most circumstances. She, he assumed, was mated to the old man. "Were we expecting anyone?"

"Damn, Juuro!" Maxwell huffed exuberantly, scowling at Sesshoumaru darkly.

"What about Rika, Max?" she asked gently. Max's answer was to thrust a piece of paper at her which Sesshoumaru could only assume had been inside the parcel he'd just delivered. Sesshoumaru's instructions had been placed between the inner envelop he'd just delivered and the larger envelop that had been in his mail box. He hadn't even been curious about the contents, but now he was beginning to think this had been short-sighted of him. Max's glare hadn't moved from its intense persecution of Sesshoumaru's nose.

"Oh my," she hummed in amusement. "This is a switch. Rika has certainly developed a taste for the ironic as she's aged. Imagine you teaching anybody," she chuckled warmly, her tone laced with a warm, purring sound inherent in most of the feline youkai.

"I can't believe she would ever think of such a foolish thing," the old man grumbled darkly. "No one can teach art! Creativity can't be taught, damnit!" Sesshoumaru blinked in surprise, unaware that he'd been sent to find an artist to teach him at all.

"Well stop scowling at the boy, Maxi, it isn't his fault you're mad at Rika," Max's scowl swung unerringly to his female.

"I told you not to call me that!"

"And I haven't listened for sixty years. What makes you think I'll start now?" Her gaze swept from Max to Sesshoumaru weighingly. "Come along then, you're here. You may as well stay for lunch. It'll be at least that long before Maxwell will be calm enough to be coherent." Her eyes swung back to the irate human male. "Did Rika send anything else with the boy?" A second later found the entire contents of the padded envelop thrown at her feet and Max stomping angrily from the room. Mildly, the female bent to pick everything up before turning to lead Sesshoumaru further into the hole in the ground.

Sesshoumaru wasn't claustrophobic, no inu really was, but he didn't like being unable to identify the exits. Oh, in an emergency he could certainly make a way out of here, but the training he'd received growing up, outside of school, had ingrained in him a solid need to be prepared for every eventuality and leaving discretely and in a hurry was a standard plan. This place made him slightly nervous and following behind a taciturn old half cat didn't help things at all.

"Lets see what Rika, sent us about you," the woman muttered as she rifled through the few items in her hands until she poured an USB memory stick into her hand from the envelop. "I am Nonoka Maxwell. You may call me Nonny, now that you'll be coming and going often. That old grump who you'll be working with is Willem Maxwell. I was born in the orient and met Max shortly after coming in to Civilization after living amongst the natives for a time. I was a little shaky on how these westerners named themselves. I called him Max and it stuck. He actually liked it better than his first name. How long have you been interested in art?"

"Not long," Sesshoumaru rumbled quietly. "It was only suggested to me Christmas before last."

"Really," Nonny sounded surprised, though why she would be Sesshoumaru couldn't fathom. It wasn't like she'd seen any of his efforts yet to make a real judgment on his progress or skill. "You'll have to forgive Maxwell. He never was the teacher. I used to teach law several decades ago, but he's always believed you couldn't teach art. You could teach someone to make copies or paint by number, but art is creativity and creativity is something different for every individual. Meaning you can't put rules on it, you can't grade it, and you can't patent a formula for it." She lead him to a quaint little room filled with streaming sunlight coming through a window in the ceiling. There were bowls of steaming food and a bowl of salad greens setting off to the side. "Maxi's health requires the greens, his age and lifestyle have caught up with him. I always told him humans needed more vegetables than hanyou or youkai." She grinned at him mischievously. "He complains about that too."

"Hn," Sesshoumaru responded as respectfully as he could.

Carefully she set the curling crumpled letter from Juuro-sensei on the table beside her plate and lifted a tablet computer from the sideboard along the wall before returning to the table. She inserted the memory stick and read the files on it. A simple adjustment of the tablet's orientation and Sesshoumaru could see what it was Nonny was looking at. They were jpg's of his work. Art he'd turned in for classes; images of the gifts he'd made for his mate. It was, in essence, his portfolio put together by his only teacher and probably the only person familiar with every piece of art he'd ever worked on.

"These are lovely," Nonny declared aloud with a gentle smile and Sesshoumaru colored. It always took him by surprise when someone complimented his art. "Very good pieces all around, not just for a beginner. Your technique could use some practice and a little more schooling and it looks like you're exploring new avenues in which to express yourself. Perhaps Max can teach you a thing or two."

"You can't teach art!" Max grumped as he came to the table and glared down at the salad in front of his place. Sesshoumaru couldn't be certain, but he fancied the greens wilted a little under his displeasure. "What are you looking at, Nonny?"

Nonny turned her tablet to show him Sesshoumaru's pieces, while the inu sat there a bit uncomfortably. He hadn't realized when he'd set out on Juuro-sensei's errand that he was essentially heading to an interview of sorts. He hadn't dressed for it, hadn't prepared for it and it left him feeling a little off-balance.

"You will bring the actual pieces next time." Max demanded shortly after briefly perusing the various images. "What do you use for reference?"

"No," Sesshoumaru declared shortly.

"What do you mean no?" Max growled in his puny human way.

"These were probably gifts, Maxwell," Nonny cut in. "He most likely doesn't have the originals in his possession. And if he did, being seen with such things would probably get him in some serious trouble."

"What are you talking about!"

"The Taishou heirs are currently the talk of all the papers right now, especially Sesshoumaru. The younger boy is already attached and she's currently living with him. But Sesshoumaru is the elder therefore the more likely to inherit the family fortune. He's a good looking male with a formerly bad reputation." Nonny declared with a smirk. "Nobody cares that he's straightened up his act since being engaged to a woman of undisclosed age, species, class or affiliations. He's still available, capable of changing his mind. I bet all the girls at the university won't leave him alone as it is. You want him to risk being caught carrying around courting gifts or art supplies, proving he's sensitive on top of being a wealthy bad boy? He'd probably be gang raped in broad daylight!"

"Don't be silly. If he doesn't have them that's one thing but don't go making up dramatic stories for no reason!" Max scoffed.

"Photographs," Sesshoumaru cut in, not wanting either one to argue further about the reality of his appeal to the opposite sex. Or the same sex for that matter. Not all of the confessions he'd received had been from females. "This Sesshoumaru works from photos mostly."

"Then bring those," Max ordered crisply.

"They are on Memory sticks also," he wanted to be sure the old man knew that.

"Fine!" Maxwell huffed impatiently as he stabbed the greens onto his fork. "Nonny has all the latest electronic doo-dads and software. We'll make it work."

Nonny winked conspiratorially at Sesshoumaru before taking a another bite of the lunch she'd been slowly working through while the conversation was underway. Sesshoumaru didn't know how the next few months would work out, but it looked like he'd found a teacher – mentor might be more accurate, and a place to run to however often Max decided Sesshoumaru needed to be out here.


	18. Holiday Interference

Well my lovelies, we're back to the great white north in this chapter. A lot has been happening around Kagome since the last chapter so this would be her part. I don't know if any of you noticed, but Kagome's been letting our semi-favorite inu in a little more. All to the good. Progress isn't made in leaps and bounds - usually - rather it slips by in small silent steps no one notices until a moment of pause comes upon us and we look back to see that a mountain _can_ be climbed in baby steps.

Calendar: October.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Holiday Interference**

"Please think about it mate," Sesshoumaru-san pleaded with her from the other end of the line. It wasn't like him to plead for anything, but Kagome figured he wanted this very much and it didn't help that Inuyasha and Kikyou's romancing always left Sesshoumaru uncomfortable on top of being horny because of his own needs and the dreams that still plagued him nearly nightly.

"Fine," Kagome huffed. "I'll think about it," she promised before they made their good byes and she hung up for the night. With a glaring sigh she gently tapped the antenna end of her phone against her temple a moment before tossing the frustrating device across the room. It bounced safely across the disheveled sheets and blankets of her bed before resting somewhere up by her pillow. At this moment, Kagome couldn't bring herself to care about where it was, or even if it had survived its flight. She knew she would feel bad later if it had been damaged, but right now she simply couldn't muster the energy to worry about it.

The last two months had been a lesson in Murphy's law and the possibility of living in hell on earth. Kagome had never believed she could ever be more stressed or wrung out than she had been the day of the Tsunami that rocked her home country but...

No, that wasn't accurate. The immediacy of her latest problems were skewing her judgment. And it didn't help that she was still thoroughly exhausting herself maintaining that same barrier over her family shrine from a world away. The government may be claiming the situation was back under control and that the radiation was back down to healthy levels, but the Japanese government had lied before. Kagome wasn't going to risk her family and the people they protected just because of a government trying to calm nationwide panic had told another fib.

That, however, was not her main problem or even the biggest reason for the emotional exhaustion she was now facing. Physical exhaustion had only driven her to sleep a little more often, read once a month instead of once every six and that only when Sesshoumaru-san interfered.

No, this trouble had come through a different, unexpected avenue all together.

About two months ago, Brett had been wrapping up months of planning for his and Louis-san's whatever-year anniversary celebration. It wasn't going to be a party so much as just the two of them spending the entirety of a single weekend locked up in the privacy of Louis-san's apartment enjoying the romantic food and best erotic experiences carefully budgeted money could buy. Brett had been looking forward to it so much, Kagome was exhausted just watching him. He was like a little kid waiting for the bell to release him to school vacation. Jittery and anxious for it to finally be underway.

Kagome had been fairly certain that Louis-san was also looking forward to spending time with his lover. She didn't see him as much and his anticipation was kept under a tight leash when not in private so it was hard to gauge his emotion, but she'd seen enough to convince her their plans were as close to being set in stone as plans could be.

She'd expected to come home that Friday to a slightly messy apartment, remnants of Brett's excited rush to complete his final preparations for his weekend after his last class before bolting out the door to his boyfriend's waiting arms. Kagome had planned to ignore the mess and spend a quiet weekend just enjoying the break from her hyper roommate and eating the various dishes she'd grown up with that typically turned Brett's stomach. She'd needed to study for her weekly quizzes the following Monday but planned to delve into her roommate's old movie collection to investigate one or two that had intrigued her but not yet been played for her to see.

Instead, she walked in to see Brett with a full glass of wine glowering at some git on screen singing about washing some man out of her hair. It was then Kagome expected a repeat of the Valentine's day fiasco that had happened year before last. She'd resigned herself to monitoring his alcohol intake and being subjected to Rogers and Hammerstein until the small hours of the morning before he gave up and went to bed.

That wasn't what happened.

Truthfully, Rogers and Hammerstein did only last until the wee hours of Friday night/Saturday morning. The marathon, however, did not stop then. Rather it continued with all manner of musicals after that. Musicals from various other studios. Movies from around the same time period but with slightly different styles and tones. Oh, all the ones Brett chose were equally likely to put someone in a better mood, but none were proving effective. And Brett never did stop with the wine, even though she did her best to slow him down, to dampen the effects of it with water and dilution with juice. Brett managed to keep it up until they were out of the juice and never once did she manage to get him to eat something.

Sometime late Saturday afternoon, Kagome had demanded an explanation. The marathon had never lasted more than one night and if it lasted much longer she seriously worried they'd be making a trip to the hospital for his alcohol content.

She'd expected Brett had been stood up in some way, though how Louis-san could not meet him in his own apartment was difficult to work out. Kagome had expected a serious argument. The two did occasionally fall out with each other, never for long, but it was always enough to be seriously upsetting for Brett.

Kagome had not expected to be told the two had broken up. It wasn't a complete surprise. There were certainly issues to be found in their relationship as there were in just about every one she'd ever been privy to. Hell, hers with Sesshoumaru-san was plagued with all kinds of issues, but they were working through them and there was no chance of breaking up like this. She just hadn't expected Brett and Louis to break up so abruptly.

AS such, she'd coaxed Brett tell her the rest of what happened, gently so as not to upset him further. It was healthier for him to talk about it, Kagome had been witness to enough breakups to know that.

Apparently Brett had arrived at Louis-san's apartment baring Chinese takeout eager to start their weekend without having to waste time cooking dinner. He'd cheerfully knocked on the door waiting for his lover to let him in only to find Louis-san thrusting a wad of cash at him before removing the take out from his hands and shutting the door in his face. Naturally he'd been stunned by his boyfriend's behavior. Brett had stood there trying to work out what possibly could have changed in the twenty minutes since he'd last spoken to Louis on the phone. He stood there so long, that he was still there when the door opened again to reveal a slightly panicking soon-to-be lawyer.

Louis-san told him their romantic anniversary weekend was canceled. His little sister Bianca had made a surprise visit and Brett would need to go home. As anyone would react in that situation, Brett had begun to argue that there was no need to completely cancel their weekend. He'd just wanted to spend time together. That time didn't have to be spent carnally. It was preferred certainly, but not required.

Louis wouldn't hear of it. He wouldn't compromise his secret life. Bianca and his parents still had no idea of their golden boy's sexual preferences and he was adamant that they would never have an inkling of it. Brett would not be setting foot inside his apartment while his sister was in town.

Brett had tried to compromise. They could all spend time together doing the things boys planned for a weekend of fun while including Bianca. They could go bowling or watch some stupid sporting event. They could even do something moderately girly without arousing any suspicion simply by telling Louis' little sister that they did it in deference to her preferences.

Even that had been shot down. Ultimately, it ended in a heated stalemate where Brett felt his lover actually hated him and didn't want him around at all. So, Brett had ended it.

He'd ended it so abruptly that after eighteen hours of his pick-me-up movies he was still trying to decide if he was content with his decision or if he had actually been in the wrong the whole time. It was a classic response to a sudden change of status, the second guessing, the insecurity.

So Kagome had shoved Brett to the side of the couch to make room for herself then broken from her regular behavior to draw his head into her shoulder and told him what she thought. She didn't go into Louis-san's desire to remain in the closet where his folks were concerned. She didn't tell Brett she thought Louis did his family a disservice by doing so. Those were personal choices for Louis to make and Brett had gone into the relationship and stayed in it knowing that from the start.

Rather she told him that it wasn't completely out of line for him to expect his lover treat him as at least a friend in the presence of people not in the real know. Even a straight guy could have guy friends and spend weekends doing guy things together. It wasn't even unheard of for a straight guy to have gay friends. Both Louis and Brett had guy friends who had serious girlfriends after all. Brett wasn't wrong to end a relationship in which he was made to feel as a dirty, shameful secret. It was allowed. Hell, at that moment Kagome wanted to go and kick Louis in the pants for his behavior.

Kagome well knew that Bianca wasn't likely to see more in anyone referred to as a friend after the fiasco at Christmas. And she'd be less likely to do it with a guy friend however flamboyantly gay he appeared. Louis-san's reaction had been unreasonable.

AS was to be expected, the drama and emotional circus didn't end immediately. Brett had been with Louis a long time and typically the longer a person had been in a relationship, the longer it took to get over it. Kagome knew this going in, she just hadn't expected the merry-go-round to be quite so involving and emotionally nerve-wracking.

It was sort of a cycle started that weekend. When Brett wasn't working of a Friday night, the marathon was guaranteed. Rogers and Hammerstein and whatever musical he could get his hands on would start before she got home from her last class and last well into Saturday afternoon. Usually then he'd break down and cry against her shoulder before she'd usher him into his own bed where he would stay until Sunday morning with a new resolve to not be so pathetic, his word not hers.

All of Sunday he'd be a hyperactive, chattering box of insane ideas and last minute plans. Most of his plans never made it past Tuesday. Monday he'd start to deflate under the demands of the classes he seemingly had trouble focusing for and exposure to the rumor mill. Louis-san had allegedly done so-and-so over the weekend or Louis had participated in such-and-such erotic bisexual kinky sex game. Tuesday brought him down further as he had hours between classes on campus in which he had little else to do beyond staring at his phone remembering all the times just such time had been spent talking to Louis or arranging to waste a little time with some intimate, spontaneous romp in a broom closet. Kagome hadn't known about that particular aspect of their relationship before and she certainly could have gone on with her life not knowing.

Wednesday offered a brief respite with his study group of senior students. Kagome was a part of it occasionally and the group was mostly supportive, making him laugh at the absurd antics of other classmates and taking his mind off anything but becoming a doctor and the upcoming exams, looking into sites for their residencies the following year and the like.

Thursdays were a study in torture for Kagome, because Thursdays were the days that Louis-san passed through campus on his way to his medical law classes. Brett would station himself in the perfect place to catch a glimpse of him the way he had every time before that when Louis would be on campus. It was a habit he needed to break and he knew he needed to break it which of course left him beating himself up because he hadn't broken it yet.

There were a few deviations from the prescribed cycle. After all, not all of his Sunday plans died by Tuesday. One of his major projects and prolonged plans had been an effort to arrange a birthday party for Kagome. She didn't know how he'd learned of her birth date and she'd never celebrated it the way these foreigners did so there had been no reason to expect it. And even less reason to defend against the possibility. But Brett was perverse in his plans and desperate to do her a good turn in his own way.

Thus, she'd been subjected to the most embarrassing of birthday parties she could ever imagine. Classmates and coworkers had been invited to wish her many happy returns with sex toys in hand. Kagome didn't consider herself a prude, but she didn't appreciate her sex life, or lack there of, being the purview of people she hadn't chosen to enlighten herself. Besides, how was one supposed to react to a gift of edible underwear from a perfect stranger?

Kagome had wanted to lay into Brett so badly she was afraid her teeth would grind into powder from the strain of holding herself back. She wouldn't give him what for in front of an audience but he had definitely been out of line. Especially since she had never indicated an interest in having such a party.

To make matters worse, Brett had used his camera phone to record every last gift she'd received and somehow snuck the resulting images into that last package she'd sent Sesshoumaru-san.

Sesshoumaru had finally begun to settle into his new country enough that he was making true friends and establishing a comfortable routine. She'd learned of his long runs into the country with the accompanying bus rides and sought to make them more enjoyable for him with a small gift. The mp3 player she'd sent had been filled with music she'd received from friends and former classmates now spread around the globe. The variety was such as to guarantee there was something he would enjoy. The player had also had the capability to show small video files if he'd prefer. Kagome hadn't sent him any of those, though Brett apparently had.

Now Sesshoumaru-san knew every kind of adult toy she had in her possession because she hadn't been able to bring herself to trash anything that had been a gift. Kagome knew there was no way for any of the givers to know if she kept them or didn't, if she used them or left them sealed in their packages, but she still couldn't bring herself to discard a single one.

As of right now, they all sat in their original packages hidden in a large brown paper bag buried under the pieces of wrapping paper they'd come in. Kagome spent most of her time, when she wasn't trying to break Brett out of his cycle, or growing soggy with his tears, or trying desperately to study around his emotional demands, trying to forget it was there.

Which was a lot harder than she was expecting. An insomniac like her, always had too much time on her hands and she lacked experience with sex outside of the rather clouded remembrance of her mating night and Sesshoumaru's embarrassing effort to push her to orgasm over the phone last year after her attack.

Kagome's face burned at the memory. An irritated sigh left her lips as she decided that she definitely needed a nice relaxing shower. Moving around her room, she gathered the necessary things required before heading out to the bathroom she usually shared with her currently absent roommate.

Brett had been kidnapped by his sister Alicia for a nice long weekend in the bosom of his loving family. Kagome had arranged it earlier in the week, desperately in need of a break from his emotional roller coaster in order to properly study for two major exams next week. She'd had his phone, stolen it really, to help him break the habit of staring at it forlornly on Tuesday when Alicia had called.

Alicia had been surprised to be answered by Kagome and not her brother. She'd been even more surprised when Kagome had mistakenly informed Brett's sister of the break up. Apparently this was news that hadn't been shared with the loving family back home. Alicia didn't know that Brett and Louis were no longer an item and she hadn't known that they'd broken up such a long time ago either.

It struck Kagome as unusual. She knew Brett and his family were close. Perhaps his failing to keep them abreast of love life woes was a major contributing factor to his inability to move on. In any case she'd felt bad about telling Alicia something Brett hadn't, for all of two minutes. Then Kagome had realized that whether he'd told them or not, Brett would benefit from spending time with the people who loved him. His family were the only people she felt comfortable requesting this kind of aid from and they needed to know what they were helping him heal from to be successful.

She would face the wrath of Brett after he came back, if there was even a mild chance that he would start to feel better after a weekend at home. Besides, she couldn't think of anybody that could help him better refocus on his studies the way he needed to. Brett had been slipping since the break up. Not enough to effect his grades, but enough that if it continued he'd be in serious trouble when the time came for finals.

Alicia agreed. Quite strenuously.

Kagome knew the story. Brett had wanted to be a doctor from childhood. During the dark times in high school when he was afraid to come out to his peers about his sexual orientation he'd taken to wearing an antique stethoscope as a kind of accessory everyday to school. She supposed it was a form of misdirection a little eccentricity to take the attention off his lack of girlfriends, but it was also a constant reminder of why he needed to make it through.

The family wouldn't let that dream, his dream, break because of a temporary bad patch in his life. Alicia had come to ambush him this afternoon. Kagome had let her in before leaving for her one o'clock class hours before Brett would make it home. She'd had absolutely no doubt that Brett's sister would have all him packed and ready to go before he even knew she was in town. The minute he walked in the door she'd have him back out it again and down to the car.

Alicia would take care of him. It was up to Kagome to take care of herself.

Her plans for her Brett-free weekend had been sparse and simple. She needed to study as much as she could cram into the few days she had before the roller coaster would start back up again. Tomorrow, Saturday, Ginta and Hakkaku had invited her to a play some of their younger pack mates were in at school. She'd agreed to go certain she would need the break by then and more than willing to spend the time with them regardless.

Kagome had also thought that at some point she'd like to check out some of the old movies in Brett's collection that she had yet to see. Older films, some of them, were incredibly interesting and a handful of the DVDs on the shelf had intrigued her.

She hadn't planned for Sesshoumaru to put in a request just now to usurp all the extra hours available to her with the holiday on Monday. That was what he was asking her to think about.

Kagome wouldn't mind spending the hours of her holiday talking with Sesshoumaru, but that wasn't what he'd requested. Oh, no. Sesshoumaru wanted her to spend the whole of the day, mostly night for him, sprawled out naked on her bed surrounded by the toys he _knew_ she had in her possession. He wanted her to use them under his direction without her interfering with the sensations transmitted through their mating bond. Basically, he'd blind-sided her with his request. It'd been months since the last time he'd teased her with sexual innuendo and even his curiosity over her clothing had fallen to the wayside of their life.

There had been the tsunami, the nuclear panic, his temporary relocation to the great down under, and the stressful dissolution of her roommate's long term relationship.

Wow, perhaps she should take this as a sign that things were getting back to normal.

Kagome gave a mirthless laugh before turning on the tap to the shower. It wasn't like she wasn't curious about some of the things she'd received. Her brain never shut down. It was harder for her not to think of something than to wonder.

She just...she didn't want a repeat of last year. It had taken so long to finish that night she'd worried for months if there was something wrong with her. It was possible she had been more damaged by the excessive doses of Sesshoumaru's courting mist than Kagome had thought or noticed before.

She'd made the mistake of expressing her concerns to him a while back. Sesshoumaru's advice had been that she needed coaching and practice. She stepped into the steaming water with an amused sigh. Kagome should have expected it. Sesshoumaru was male and inu, and was well-known as a horndog before he'd marked her. Males, she was coming to learn, loved to solve their every problem with sex whenever possible.

Brett had even attempted it once or twice since the break up, one night stands filled with the influence of alcohol and sex with no strings. She couldn't tell that it had helped anything.

In her case, there may be something to it. At the very least if Kagome did some explorations on her own she could discern if she truly was damaged or not. She just...

She really hadn't intended to do anything about it any time soon. Certainly not this weekend. And she wouldn't be doing anything on Monday if she didn't get a good amount of studying done before then.

Her decision mostly made, Kagome confirmed it with a sharp nod under the spray. Study first. Ginta and Hakkaku next. The possibility of fulfilling Sesshoumaru's request last.

And with that she dismissed the rest of it to finish her shower.


	19. Picnics in December

Guess what! It's x-mas again. I swear, time just disappears when you're involved with drama, studying, testing, and adjusting to new experiences. We as a species are exceptionally adaptable, but the sacrifice of adaptation is time, because no one accepts or enacts change instantly.

It is always interesting to experience holidays in a foreign country, especially holidays that are fairly ubiquitous. Kagome has already had a couple experiences proving that even within the same country the experiences can vary. Sesshoumaru is in a completely different hemisphere which adds a very profound meteorological and geological difference to what he's used to.

In any case, I hope you enjoy it. I'm off to work!

Calendar: December. (as if the title didn't give it away).

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Picnics in December**

Sesshoumaru curiously glanced over the spread of strange food placed on the checkered blanket. Christmas in a foreign country was every bit of the strange experience that his mate had told him it was. While Inuyasha and Kikyou were determined to celebrate the holiday and subsequent days off from classes in traditional Japanese fashion, Sesshoumaru had no desire to be party to it.

This naturally left him at loose ends. He'd spent the last week observing Carols by Candlelight, in which families gather out of doors in parks to sing in greater or lesser (much lesser) harmony. It reminded him rather of the flower viewing parties back home, except for the singing part.

He'd been out to the beach only once since the university started their break in classes. This time of year saw the Australian masses heading that way and one experience was more than enough for Sesshoumaru. Besides, he wasn't that big a fan of sand.

The air throughout the city was filled with the smell of meat cooking. Apparently, December was the month of grilling out of doors. The scent of it was positively mouth-watering, the juices sizzling in the sun and fragrant air. Though the smell probably wouldn't have drawn so much of Sesshoumaru's undivided attention if Kikyou hadn't stopped cooking meat at meal times since the weather had grown so hot.

Everywhere there were these little red flowered plants that looked nothing like the Poinsettias Sesshoumaru was accustomed to Westerners associating with November and December. It's perfume seemed particularly cloying since it was so unfamiliar.

This was essentially the summer holiday combined with Christmas and six weeks was customarily given over to the pursuit of sun, beach, and family. In fact, classes weren't set to resume until late January. Sesshoumaru's family, well what was available to him in Australia, was in pursuit of alone time with Kikyou. Neither brother had bothered to tell their parents about the long break for fear of being called home to visit. Inuyasha hated the cold, being smothered by the family, and radiation poisoning. Sesshoumaru, despite his issues with being subjected to his little brother's amorous pursuits, enjoyed living with pack, pursuing his art and otherwise being free to make plans without worrying about how a certain male inu might react or otherwise interfere.

Taishou Hiroyuki had a bad habit of calling Sesshoumaru at the last minute for various events the younger inu was suddenly required to attend. Since his mating, the number of times it happened in a given week had increased significantly once the old dog had perceived Sesshoumaru's penchant for staying in of an evening since he no longer went out drinking in pursuit of a lover for the night. It wasn't a new development, but the increasing frequency had made him less willing to make plans he would later have to break.

Put simply, in Japan, Sesshoumaru's life wasn't his own.

Away from the controlling, inconsiderate beck and call of his sire, Sesshoumaru felt better about committing to study groups and exploration trips around the smallest continent. Although, he rarely went very far from Brisbane. Well, far by his definition. Sesshoumaru had a standing appointment each week that he never risked missing. Every Saturday found the inu underground with the recalcitrant Max and feline Nonny.

He enjoyed his time with them. Max still maintained that art could not be taught, but Nonny had convinced her petulant spouse that before someone could create all the art the soul could hold, they had to know how to manipulate the various media to do so. As Willem Maxwell did most of his work in various metal compositions, he was imparting the various techniques required to successfully manipulate and finish copper, steel, and other common metal composites.

Max's first lessons had started with the most malleable of his materials, the softest of ores, and Sesshoumaru's assignment was to manipulate it to match a picture taken by his mate. Most of his assignments were like that. His far distant mate sent him memory sticks full of pictures and Max picked one out for Sesshoumaru to copy and thus prove mastery over the manipulation of the latest metal medium.

To some it might seem tedious, but like he'd found with his sketching, Sesshoumaru enjoyed the effort and always felt he'd accomplished something even when his efforts turned out what he considered a failure. Unlike his teacher's attempts to sculpt using the various alloys, Sesshoumaru didn't require the use of many tools. His youkai strength allowed him to bend and mold most metals by hand. His tougher skin made it so he didn't have to wear the protective gloves the old curmudgeon did to avoid cutting himself on the rough edges of an unfinished piece.

And as for finishing...Max typically resorted to acids and other chemical solutions that were quite pungent. Sesshoumaru merely had to practice releasing varying concentrations of his own toxins. Even the courting mists had an effect on the metal surfaces, though Nonny had swiftly banned their usage within her home after the one time Max instructed him to use it.

Right now though, neither Max nor Nonny were trying to teach him anything. In fact, they weren't even in their subterranean home, which he had come to learn was a rarity. Nonny had exceptional difficulty dealing with the pollutants associated with the city and large groups of people in general. It was why both lived underground as it was easier to cleanse the air she breathed and keep all of the things that gave her trouble out.

His mate had told him that Nonny's situation wasn't that uncommon, though it _was_ an extreme case. Nonny hadn't always been so sensitive. In her long ago, fabled youth, she'd worked as a civil lawyer out of Brisbane where Max had also been a renowned artist in high demand. Then she'd gotten pregnant. The pregnancy had been difficult and Nonny had actually been driven from the city to a small, rickety cabin rented for her use.

She'd finished out her pregnancy there. It wasn't uncommon for youkai females to react that way while carrying. It was instinctual to provide the best environment during pregnancy because the health of the mother translated to health of the unborn. Usually it cleared up after the birthing. Sometimes it lingers, or some heightened sensitivity remains. Rarely does the full effect remain as it did with Nonny. But it wasn't unheard of.

Today was Christmas and once Nonoka had learned that Sesshoumaru had no intention of spending it with Inuyasha and Kikyou, she had insisted he join their holiday festivities. Which is how he found himself on a checkered blanket filled with picnic fare in the middle of December.

There were dishes present he'd never associated with the December holiday before. Pasta salad and potato salad, cold turkey and ham sandwiches were foods he'd understood many westerners associated with picnics, but he just hadn't been aware Australians really ate them for Christmas. And such was not fare he'd expected a partial neko youkai mated to a human with such dietary restrictions to serve.

Normally, Sesshoumaru wouldn't complain, but since Kikyou had stopped preparing the red meat that was his accustomed staple, Nonoka was his only supplier of animal protein from week to week. Nonoka always insisted on feeding him when he came out of a Saturday. She, like inu, preferred more red meat in her diet than would be strictly healthy for a human. He'd grown to anticipate his weakly meals with the Maxwell's for that fact almost as much as the effort to further his art. It kept Sesshoumaru sane.

And the weekly run did him good also.

Actually, it turns out his run out to the Maxwell's domicile was required for safe admittance to their home. If Sesshoumaru didn't shift into the inu and race through the countryside, brushing along the low brush and allowing the natural wind to sweep through his fur, he'd arrive on the Maxwell's doorstep too contaminated with the city pollutants to be allowed in. Or rather, he couldn't be allowed inside without a rather involved detox effort that was equal parts tedious and embarrassing. Sesshoumaru wasn't all that self-conscious of being nude in front of others, usually, but Nonny had to comment about everything. Her comments typically put Max into a more recalcitrant mood than normal which lead to a very unproductive day overall.

Today, such was not the reason there would be no working towards any current lesson from Max. Nonny had expressly forbidden either male from working or doing more than discussing Sesshoumaru's difficulties with his current assignment.

The last was a concession made for Sesshoumaru's benefit more than Max's. The old couple had learned there was very little the inu was willing to discuss with them beyond that. He wouldn't talk about his pack, his other classes, any possible difficulties he might be having transitioning, or how he was dealing with the various proposals and propositions still being received on a regular basis. Hell, he hadn't even told Nonny he wasn't getting any red meat at home otherwise he was certain there would be steak on the menu regardless of the traditional holiday fare.

Nonny insisted it was a holiday and as such no work was going to be done. Sesshoumaru even suspected all the preparations for this holiday feast had been performed the day before as nothing presented had to be made immediately before consumption.

To that end, Sesshoumaru was trying to appear as enamored with the food as he usually was and brainstorming ideas for his latest project. "You could make individual leaves for your tree sculpture," Nonny suggested cheerfully from her spot, munching away on her leg of cold fried chicken. Such did not appeal to Sesshoumaru, but she was a cat and cats everywhere enjoyed bird meat of any kind. "That would certainly give you more than the thirty identical pieces required to meet Maxi's terms."

"Leaves are never identical in nature and should not be in sculpture either," Max grumped at her inane suggestion.

"The sculpture was based on a picture take in the midst of winter," Sesshoumaru added mildly. "What few leaves were left on the branches were withered and barely clinging to their homes." Nowhere near the thirty Max had demanded.

The assignment made a sort of sense to Sesshoumaru, though Nonny had insisted it was hardly likely to further Sesshoumaru's skills. Max had demanded Sesshoumaru create thirty identical sculptures from whatever metal of his choice. He had already decided on a warm bronze medium, but the subject was more difficult to determine. His mate seldom sent him pictures of anything that would inspire the sort of repetitious sculpting that was required.

Photography, even for amateurs, was usually geared towards the composition of a piece. Photographs were hardly going to capture anyone's interest if it lacked variety of color, shape, and depth. It was the nature of their art.

"What about buttons?" Nonny offered brightly. "You can always use buttons."

Max merely sneered at the idea, and while Sesshoumaru would never be so disrespectful of his host even if she were part neko, he agreed. There was no real skill required to make metal buttons, not of the sort Max was looking for his student to display. Although Sesshoumaru would concede that buttons _were_ useful.

That was his real hang up. Sesshoumaru was not of the philosophy of making art for the sake of art, especially given that he could never continue with his hobby under the watchful eyes of his alpha if his art wasn't useful to someone in some way. Hiroyuki was hardly a supporter of the arts.

The tree sculpture he had made was actually a sold piece for some local business. The assignment Max had given that had spawned that bit of art required that he adapt his creative drive to the demands of a specific patron. They had wanted something dignified, nature-inspired, and enduring. His buyer had been rather taken by the idea of a tree waiting for spring and awakening. The way Sesshoumaru had presented the idea had left his customer more than happy to take it on. They had even put plans into motion to incorporate his sculpture into their company logo.

The other pieces had been small and made of metals that could be easily reused for other projects. Nonny took pictures of the finished products for Sesshoumaru's portfolio and his lessons moved on.

"Well, I'm stumped," Nonny admitted defeat with a last bite of the meat from the bone, setting the denuded calcium structure aside for later. She would never be so uncouth as to gnaw on the bones in front of company, holiday or not. "If the boy didn't have this hang up over requiring an actual use for his art, he could just make three dozen race cars and hand them out as toys or something."

Max snorted. He'd refused to offer suggestions from the start. Willem Maxwell was the teacher, his job was to teach technique, precision, and marketability – not to cloud up Sesshoumaru's creative flow with undue influence. Art was creativity, it couldn't be taught. There was no deadline for the assignment, as art also couldn't be rushed. Which wasn't to say there were never deadlines, given that clients wouldn't always wait for proper inspiration, but that assignment had already been completed. Sesshoumaru had passed it handily, which held no baring on this assignment.

So far all of Sesshoumaru's subjects had been nature inspired. Hardly surprising given his ethnicity and the obvious fascination his photographer muse had with it. But nature allowed for defects and imperfection in form and composition. Repetition would not. Any flaw that showed in one piece had to be present in all for the project to pass this assignment. Which all but eliminated a natural subject.

Into this peacefully pensive silence came the warble of Sesshoumaru's special phone from deep in his pocket.

Any other visit out to the Maxwell's, Sesshoumaru would excuse himself and answer the call. There was always a convenient corner or niche or even an entire room to step into for privacy and avoid offending his hosts.

Today, they were out of doors. No rooms around to step into. No quiet corners to bow into. There wasn't even a bush or tree nearby.

It was incredibly rude to answer the phone at the table. Or so Sesshoumaru believed, and a picnic should be treated the same despite the exceedingly informal situation. The last thing he wanted to do was offend his hosts. He actually liked the Maxwells, even if Nonny was part neko and his teacher was a chronic grump. He respected them and cared about their opinions. They had things to teach him that Sesshoumaru actually wanted to learn.

At the same time it was physically painful not to answer his mate. The mere thought of offending her by ignoring the call caused a painful squeezing in his chest.

His uncharacteristic indecision flooded Sesshoumaru with the powerful urge to squirm like a pup. Which was strange given that he had never felt like squirming when he _was_ a pup.

Before his pocket could ring a second time, Sesshoumaru pulled his phone into the open and gazed beseechingly between it and Nonoka. "You may answer your call," she began, the warm sun making the old cat drowsily indulgent, "if you put it on speaker to include us in the conversation."

The inu blinked at her suggestion mildly. He should have known. Neko were infamous for their curiosity and no doubt the ever watchful partial cat had taken note of his periodic need to step away from Max and his assigned projects. Not that Sesshoumaru could bring himself to mind terribly much, it was to his benefit after all.

With deft movements, Sesshoumaru connected the call and immediately answered it. "You are on speaker."

An amused feminine chuckle tinkled through the tiny speakers built into his cell. He'd never had cause to use them before so he hadn't known how it would sound. Apparently, he had picked a very good phone. "I am, am I. And just who am I on speaker for?" she asked playfully. She knew there was no need for him to put her on speaker unless it was for someone else's benefit. Sesshoumaru's hearing was fully capable of stepping several feet away from his phone set on the lowest volume and still be able to catch every pin drop of sound.

Not that he needed further proof of her intelligence, such had been proven many times in the years since he'd marked her. Sesshoumaru still appreciated her powers of observation and ability to apply them without prompting. "Hnn, This Sesshoumaru has been invited to partake of Maxwell-sensei's holiday. As such we are enjoying a traditional picnic lunch." The inu finished with a smirk he knew she could hear in his voice.

"A picnic! You just love rubbing in your warm weather don't you!" she grumbled softly like he knew she would. Sesshoumaru loved forcing a reaction out of her, and his summer weather during her freezing winter never failed to do just that. "Well, it's nice to meet Nonny and Maxwell even if you are being a total boor."

"He's not being a _total_ boor," Nonny defended him kindly.

"If you were slogging through several inches of snow while he pointedly told you his weather is so nice he's gone on a picnic, you'd think he was," his mate returned with gentle spunk. "And Sesshoumaru knows he's doing it too. He never fails to bring it up!"

"Well that is rather boorish," the old cat conceded.

"It was rather good of you to include Sesshoumaru in your festivities. I'm glad he has something to do while he avoids going back to his apartment," the distant female offered the Maxwell's for him.

"Why would he avoid spending time with his family?" Nonoka's last personal visit to Japan must have been before the introduction and adoption of the western holiday if she hadn't already figured out Sesshoumaru's reason. The old neko was usually able to pick up on the reasons for each of the dog's behaviors without having to be told.

"Christmas..." Sesshoumaru began with a rumble, "is a romantic holiday."

"Yes, in Japan, the western Christmas is a couples day with significant romantic connotations," his mate added for him. "Inuyasha is currently living with his girlfriend."

"Oh. OH!" Nonny gasped as she caught on. "You want to stay the night too?" she offered.

Sesshoumaru's mate chuckled over the speakers at the sudden invitation. She knew he had absolutely no intention of spending the night with the Maxwells any more than he planned to spend it in his apartment. The plan was to stay in a hotel until the hanyou and his female left for a traveling vacation of some weeks tomorrow. She did not, answer Nonny's offer for him though. It was his choice to make therefore his answer to give.

"This Sesshoumaru has plans," was his simple reply.

"He's very grateful you offered though," the distant female continued for him.

"If you're sure."

"For Pete's sake, You old hellcat, leave the boy alone! He said he has plans," the left out Max scolded the feline. "Probably has a romantic rendezvous in the works and you want him to give that up to spend it with you. Hell, he's probably meeting the girl on the phone to romance her senseless, but you just - "

"Maxwell, he can't possibly be planning to meet - " Nonny began only to cut herself off when she realized a name had not been supplied for the woman on the phone. "I'm sorry, I failed to catch her name."

Sesshoumaru tensed in uncertain anticipation. On one side he hoped his mate would divulge her name to Nonny thereby informing him of the same. On the other, he rather wished she wouldn't proving that it wasn't just him she was keeping it from. The inu would prefer proof that she withheld her name still only due to her need to maintain their current circumstances. That she kept it only until her goal was accomplished, however long that took.

"I am Sesshoumaru's unidentified mate," she replied primly.

"How can you be unidentified and still be his mate?" Max demanded, his tone decidedly incredulous as most males would be. One had to get fairly intimate with a female in order to mate them.

"That is a story for Sesshoumaru to tell, if he feels loquacious enough to tell it. No matter how it's told it paints him in a bad light, though the telling might slant more bad or less depending on the teller," came her gentle reply, surprising Sesshoumaru with the diplomacy and leniency his mate showed him. Until he realized that she had never divulged the truth of their connection to anyone. She kept her marking completely secret from all she came in contact with. Even her roommate only knew Sesshoumaru as a pseudonym based off the sound of his voice and her boyfriend/lover.

AS she said, the bare broken down facts painted him in a bad light no matter who related them. The magnitude of his bad behavior could only be tempered, not eliminated, with the telling. "Either way, Sesshoumaru doesn't know my name. And we've kept it that way on purpose," she finished her explanation.

"What possible reason-"

"Maxi! Stop hounding the girl!" it was Nonny's turn to scold her mate.

Sesshoumaru didn't mind answering the question his sensei hadn't been allowed to finish. "She is trying to accomplish something very important that being with this Sesshoumaru would greatly hinder if not render impossible." He was proud of her and her efforts. He'd even decided that, while he wouldn't go so far as not minding the separation entirely, Sesshoumaru would embrace their division as a necessity at present.

"Speaking of," his mate cut in to change the subject. "I wanted to let you know all my obligations for the break have now been taken care of. I have the next week to myself to study and whatnot." Such was very welcome news. The last semester had limited him in his contact with her. Sesshoumaru had been required to wait for her to call instead of calling on his own. The demands on her time had been irregular and prolific upping the risk that he might interrupt something important. It had been hard.

But, this holiday would be different from the previous ones in that his mate had not been allowed to leave the city housing her school for the holiday. Brett had raised a fuss over the reality that she would be left in the apartment alone over the holiday, but her advisers had withstood the tantrum and adamantly refused. She desperately needed to study, both for her school exams and for the major exam she needed to take in order to learn and practice practical medicine in the United States. Her advisers had relented a slight amount as one actually lived in the city. That one, her only human adviser, had invited his mate to partake of their holiday festivities on Christmas eve.

Sesshoumaru had been pleased with their decision for more reasons than one. Mostly because there would be no repeat of last year with the sudden interrogation by teenage drama queens. But he rather enjoyed the thought that he could call his mate at any time and tempt her into carnality without her excuse of possibly getting caught. That thought had him struggling to think of something else to keep from embarrassing himself in front of the nosy cat.

"Did dinner with your professor's family go smoothly?" he inquired, genuinely interested.

"It went all right," she answered. Something in her tone sent up red flags. She wasn't telling him everything and Sesshoumaru knew if he didn't draw it out of her now he likely wouldn't get it at all. "I only went because I thought Miriam-sensei's family deserved to know the person that was essentially stealing her away from a long established home and tenured job."

"What is it mate?"

"I found out why my professor is so dedicated to keeping me on track."

"Well Miriam-sensei's daughter mated a youkai," she answered baldly. Sesshoumaru immediately understood even if Max and Nonny were still in the dark. "They have three wonderful, hanyou children." The sound of repressed tears hit a nerve in the inu's chest. His mate was hurting over this recent, personal brush with her target patient bracket. "The Youngest had just barely been released from his sixth long term hospital visit in time for the holiday. He's only two, Sesshoumaru and they're already planning to return him to the hospital after the new year. Their eldest absolutely adores sports, every kind of sport there is to play and he's never been able to participate because he suffers from chronic respiratory distress. He's spent his fair share of time in the hospital too. And their little girl. Sesshoumaru, she's never even taken her first step. They don't know what's wrong with her, but she bruises from the slightest pressure on her skin and her bones snap like twigs if they lift her out of her chair wrong." If not for their audience, Sesshoumaru had little trouble believing she would be wailing.

"You knew such was the case for hanyou, mate," he reminded her gently.

"It's the same everywhere," Nonny added mildly.

"But it shouldn't be!" the emotional female declared emphatically. "This should have been fixed years ago, long before parents had to watch their babies, born out of their love, suffer like this. They shouldn't have to watch them suffer while they wait for medicine to catch up to the needs of an increasingly mixing society. I should already be able to save them..."

"No mate," Sesshoumaru rebuffed her last statement sternly. "you should be learning. You need to learn everything you can so that you can offer them the best solutions possible based on that knowledge. They do not fault you for doing what you are. They cannot wish to rush you if they want all their children to find good health. As such they offer you what support they can for the hope that you will be the solution to the health problems that plague them."

"But!"

"No mate." Sesshoumaru's voice was rough with his own frustrated need to offer her greater comfort than cold logic.

"She..." Nonny began in shocked disbelief. "She's developing Hanyou medicine?"

"She will be," Sesshoumaru nodded. "But right now she is learning everything she can so that her efforts will be most effective and well informed. Such insures success will come more quickly."

"Sounds to me like she's going the right way of it." Maxwell gruffly added, offering his own efforts to calm the distress Sesshoumaru's mate was feeling. He may not be a cuddly teddy bear, but sometimes rough honesty from a grump like him was just what a situation called for. "You let us know when she's ready to start up her own clinic. We'll be there to invest as much as she needs to get the absolute best equipment there is."

"Oh You don't have-"

"Maxi has spoken, honey," Nonoka cut her off. "The decision has been made."

"But-"

"Did you give these hanyou your paper cranes?" Sesshoumaru asked. The sudden change of subject actually hit him with an idea. He now knew what to make for his assignment. They wouldn't find use for years, but they would have a purpose and he'd probably make a greater number than required. But she would have a use for them and the inu was pleased to think that, while he and she would probably both decide not to allow his father to invest in her efforts, this he could offer as her support without feeling that it came from Hiroyuki.


	20. Magic Carpet

Calendar: still December, same day. You didn't actually think I would only give Sesshoumaru one observed conversation with his mate on x-mas did you?

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Magic Carpet**

Sesshoumaru solidly slid the bolt home before turning to face the decidedly impersonal if plush hotel room that was to be his home for the evening.

Most hotels these days catered to youkai clientele. The biggest spenders and worldliest travelers tended to be of the longer lived species. It wasn't that humans didn't travel, they just didn't travel as often nor were their vacations as long. Recognizing this, most of the decent establishments for stays away from home utilized the special materials that apartment buildings felt comfortable leaving out of their construction. For this one night, he wouldn't have to worry about scenting someone else getting intimate.

The down side was that the rooms that were to be all his own held no scent of a single pack member. After living with pack again for the last several months, the absence of those scents left Sesshoumaru mildly uneasy. Having foreseen the possibility of such a problem, his mate had advised him to grab a few things before leaving home once made privy to his plans.

She was always doing things like that, striving to make Sesshoumaru more comfortable with his decisions and chosen actions. She would never tell him what to do or how to go about achieving the things he wanted to do, but if his mate had an idea how to go about reaching any one of his indicated goals the suggestion would be carefully, gently made.

Along the same vein, the distant female had even raised suggestions on _what_ exactly to bring that would accommodate his newly reawakened need for the scent of pack around his sleeping quarters. He hadn't needed the help. Sesshoumaru was certainly inu enough to know what sorts of things would have occasion to soak up scent and keep it. And he certainly had a better idea of what his two roommates wore most often. But he'd appreciated her foresight and suggestions anyway. It was proof of her more than common sense.

It did not indicate what species she was (as his half-brother had suggested it might when Sesshoumaru's plans and needs had been discussed between the two). His sweet mate was ever considerate of the comfort needs of inu in general. This could simply be due to her compassion for her future patients and the extensive knowledge she was gaining through her studies. Or she could just be a good friend, as she'd had previous contact in a friendly manner with Inuyasha prior to her escape from Japan. Granted it wasn't close enough friendship to make it any easier to identify her if she didn't want to be known.

Inuyasha's scent was the easiest to transplant. The younger male's penchant for slob-like behavior frequently found various articles of favored clothing avoiding the wash pile. To hear the hanyou tell it, there were varying stages of clean. It was a gradation of filth Sesshoumaru's couldn't quite distinguish, but each was pungent with the younger inu's scent which was all that mattered for his purposes.

It amazed Sesshoumaru how long Kikyou would put up with the aromatic carpet of her lover's garments. Her compulsive need for some amount of cleanliness and organization throughout most other aspects of her life were strangely relaxed around Inuyasha's bedroom filth.

Oh, Kikyou did occasionally run through the room with a massive laundry basket and plethora of garbage bags. The flat usually rang with Inuyasha's cursed protests and creative expletive usage at such times, though he never went so far as to actually curse his girlfriend. The hanyou came quite close on more than a handful of occasions since they came to Australia but he never crossed the line. Kikyou's usual response was a rather robust sort of deafness, blocking out almost everything her hanyou lover said at such times.

The situation usually resolved itself with the determined little female fiercely removing every bit of dirt with her efficient vacuum cleaner. Typically, the hanyou picked up a couple lumps on his head as she wielded the wand to combat the dust that found purchase over the hat and boxer be-decked ceiling fan.

Sesshoumaru took great pains not to be home for the whole event whenever he caught his female flatmate reaching for the basket. As entertaining as it had proven the first time (and every time he'd accidentally caught parts of it since) the disturbance of dust atop the fresh disturbance of Inuyasha's piled up scent with the added noise of the vacuum and the vitriol spewing from his half-brother's mouth was a little much for his senses to take at one time.

Perhaps if Sesshoumaru had lived amongst the pack with Inuyasha without interruption throughout his life he could have stood in the face of such uncouth noise and bustle without issue. He hadn't and due to this anomalous living experience, the inu had discovered an appreciation for silence, quiet and contemplative. In fact, his nights out drinking and sleeping around were never a particularly favorite past time until he got to the sex. Then the pleasure was slightly dampened by his own refusal to cuddle any female that failed to entice him to make it permanent before they and he were exhausted by the physical activity. In short, he never spent enough time with any of his temporary female companions to find or receive anything like pack comfort from their presence.

It was probably another reason having his mate insist on living her life somewhere far distant from him was the best way to develop a real, wholesome relationship. There very likely would not have been any comfort taken from a female he'd simply seduced into being his mate and promptly there after only approached for sex. Sesshoumaru hadn't thought of it before, but such treatment would have left his mate in the roll of mistress or lady of the night rather than companion for life. There was little doubt that infidelity would've followed shortly. As his mate had pointed out rather cynically right after the fiasco that was his marking her without her consent: sex wasn't everything.

Returning to the present, Sesshoumaru set his claws back to digging through his overnight bag after the items laced with the scent of pack.

Inuyasha's scent was thickly interspersed throughout the fibers of the head rag Sesshoumaru pulled from the internal side pocket. The hanyou usually wore it whenever Kikyou got up the energy to force her lover to help clean up his messes. It protected his ears from the flying dust and other debris. Inuyasha was rather cunning in his effort to hide his filth about the apartment beyond his own room. So much so that it was a wonder that Kikyou managed to find it all before anything could turn rancid and fowl up the air with the scent of rot.

Kikyou's scent was more challenging to come by. She was exceptionally clean as an individual to the point that Inuyasha found cause to tease her about it. She changed out every towel and rag every few days, her laundry ran through the washer once a week and even the sheets she shared with the hanyou got washed as often. She didn't completely wash her scent from the flat, but the only things allowed to hold it were pieces of furniture and the pillows she used to sleep at night.

He certainly couldn't snatch up one of the couches to bring with him and Inuyasha would become quite unhinged if Sesshoumaru invaded their room to catch up one of the female's possessions. Even explaining the need to borrow an article stained with her scent wouldn't have helped him as the Hanyou was irrational when it came to his future mate.

Sesshoumaru couldn't really blame him, he'd probably be the same if he was aware of any viable male out to steal articles of his distant mate's property.

Luckily for Sesshoumaru, shortly before term had ended, Kikyou had come down with a cold. It wasn't so severe that she'd been sick for more than a few days, but it had been enough for her to miss one day's classes and laid her low recovering for a whole weekend. Inuyasha had built her a nest of blankets and pillows on their living room couch and tried to nurse her through it.

The boy was only hampered greatly by his wrong impulse to feed the poor woman instant ramen at every opportunity and he refused any suggestion Sesshoumaru made. The elder inu had looked on with slight pity for the green looking invalid, unable to do anything for her until Inuyasha was forced out of the flat to class or tutoring or some other errand Kikyou desperately sent the brat on.

Then Sesshoumaru would make up a big bowl of soft rice infused with leeks and leave both it and several bottles of water within his someday pack-sister's reach. Her silent looks of gratitude were all the thanks he would take. Interfering with Inuyasha's intended was a bad idea as well he knew. As he'd carefully planned it, the only evidence that Sesshoumaru had done anything for the female was an empty bowl, a full untouched bowl of Inuyasha's instant ramen and a couple drained bottles of water.

Sesshoumaru never planned to be particularly close to Inuyasha's girl, though she would be a significant part of his shrunken pack someday. He didn't try to converse with her beyond common topics of weather, classes and groceries, even though he well knew the hanyou's overprotective and possessive tendencies would likely calm after they were successfully mated. Sesshoumaru didn't know how to get that kind of close, but he would never leave her unattended to if she needed him. Ignorant though he was about a lot of needs humans had, Sesshoumaru had learned a great deal from helping his mate study medicine. And always she remained a source of information when he needed it, if he asked for it.

It had also offered him the much needed article imbued with Kikyou's scent. The little woman's nest had remained in place for the better part of a week. And when she went to clean it up in her first rampage against filth following that episode she managed to drop one small, pale green pillow sham loaded with her scent. The thing had fluttered under the end of the sofa as she furiously stripped the cases from the other pillows flung there. Immediately after, the pillows were redressed with fresh dressings from the linen closet and relocated to the bed Inuyasha had stolen them from the week before. Inuyasha hadn't noticed her mistake. Kikyou hadn't missed it yet either so Sesshoumaru had his prize.

He fished out the sham and intertwined it around Inuyasha's head wrap to create a rather ragged wreath Sesshoumaru then hung over the door knob. It would take a while for the subtle scents to circulate through the room. He wouldn't be able to relax or sleep until it did, but Sesshoumaru wasn't tired and he still had a little more work to do to make this temporary home feel familiar to his number one sense.

The next item Sesshoumaru dug out of his bag was one he never would have thought to bring if not for his mate. Not that he'd thought to bring the rest of it without her bringing it up, but once he found himself locked in, it would have become evident the missing scents of his pack were likely to be an issue. What would not have been obvious was the lack of his own personal scent from all the items in the room.

He could smell himself subconsciously of course, but his surroundings would lack any residue of his personal contact thereby screaming unfamiliarity. Even humans would notice the lack in small subtle ways. It was common, Sesshoumaru was given to understand, that humans found difficulty sleeping in new environments too. It wasn't quite the profound anxiety suffered by youkai that relied strongly on scents, but it did happen. His mate had suggested he either bring one of his personal pillows from home or at least the cloth covering off one of them. Each were imbued with his scent from nights spent in close proximity with a strong scent area on his person.

Preferring to travel light for his one overnight in a hotel, he only brought the cover of his favored pillow. With it in hand, the inu strode over to the bed and removed one of the fluffy head rests provided and dressed it in the case brought from home. Sesshoumaru didn't even bother to remove the case already containing the downy puff offered for his use. Once done with this task, he brought the pillow with him to settle against the end of the bed on the floor.

He wasn't anywhere close to needing rest yet. So, knowing what he knew of the time difference between he and his mate and the reality that for the first time in months he was free to call her anytime without interrupting anything important, Sesshoumaru was more than ready to readdress the issues his mate had unknowingly communicated to him in front of Max and Nonny.

Fishing the ever present phone from his pocket, Sesshoumaru pressed speed dial and raised the device to his ear. He'd found through the course of the afternoon's conversation that he preferred the illusion of intimacy talking to his mate with the phone pressed to his ear over the convenience of using the speaker phone. True, the inu could probably put the phone down and walk away from it into any part of this room and still hear every word his mate said without setting the phone to speaker, but cradling the cell to his ear was somehow more comforting. It was like cradling her voice against him when he had nothing else to hold.

"Merry Christmas, Sesshoumaru" her warm voice caressed him gently.

"Happy Christmas, mate," he replied cheerfully. For some unexplained reason he was rather pleased that he could be certain they were now both trapped on the same day. True, his Christmas was approaching its end and hers was just beginning, for the next hour or so they shared the same date, and that date was December 25th.

They actually shared the same date once everyday. _This_ seemed more important than sharing any other day. It was terribly maudlin and a trifle unmasculine, but there was no denying he actually felt that way about it. Not that he would admit that to anyone else or even aloud to himself.

"So how was the picnic, really?" she asked him sardonically. It often amazed him at just how deftly she could pick up on little nuances in his voice in order to judge the sincerity of his words. His mate had asked that question earlier, in the presence of his hosts and Sesshoumaru had naturally censored what he said so as to avoid offending either of the Maxwells.

He enjoyed their company and they both had joined the rather short list of people whose opinions Sesshoumaru actually cared about. "This Sesshoumaru went out for a big steak dinner once within the confines of the city."

Her mirth at that revelation was contagious as he found himself chuckling at his previous predicament. "I know I've said this before, but I'm pretty sure that as long as Inuyasha's girlfriend is refusing to prepare food you can get nutritional value from that you could just make yourself a steak now and then."

Sesshoumaru snorted derisively, "That is Kikyou's job and I'll not attempt to wrest such a duty from her."

"If this is some gender rolls thing you and I will be-"

"This is not based on her sex and its difference from this Sesshoumaru's." the inu was quick to cut that argument in the making off before it could get started. "The kitchen is cleaned and arranged to the woman's specific preferences and needs. If even one thing were left out of the place she designated it should be..." he shuddered with his tone equally displaying his remembered disgust and horror. "Experience has been a harsh teacher."

"Oh, well. I don't know what to say to that," she relented easily. Really there wasn't anything to say about it. "I suppose you'll just have to muddle through as well as you can until the weather cools back down enough for her to be willing to cook again."

"Hn," was his noncommittal reply before changing the subject. "Now, what was it that really upset you about your holiday visit with your sensei?" While she probably had been anxious about her lack of speedy progress, his mate was sensible enough to realize that rushing through her education could someday lead to dire consequences for any one of her future patients. Sesshoumaru was ever curious about her motivations and what made her tick.

"Professor Miriam's grandchildren sort of..." she sighed. "Looking at those babies kind of...scared me." Sesshoumaru shot straight up with sudden alarm. Inu were by nature creatures with strong ties to pack and family. He could also recall in some of their earliest phone calls that her only problem with having pups now was her inability to handle the demands of pregnancy and subsequent child rearing on top of her already insanely full schedule.

"This Sesshoumaru was of the impression that you wanted a family – eventually."

"Well, yes. But in the abstract of wanting to have a family someday it isn't often thought of that the family a female will have, that the babe carried beneath her heart for months will struggle for every breath taken after birth. It is a terrifying reality to be faced with," she replied meekly. "When a girl thinks about the children she will have, the hopes for their futures, the wonders of who they will become are seldom ever tainted by the reality of those imaginary children facing the difficulty of overcoming their own bodies."

He blinked before considering what his mate had said. "True." Sesshoumaru, in his few idle prophetic visions of his future pack seldom considered bad health or chronic illness in the picture. Granted, he wouldn't be the one burdened with successful gestation, wouldn't feel the new life of his pups growing within his own body, but their life beyond the womb would be in his purview and he always envisioned healthy vibrant pups. "It is a sobering reality to be faced with."

"I'll probably get over it," she assured him. "Life carries on and every creature born to this world moves through it in unique but sturdy ways."

"Hn," he pushed the new breathtaking fear out of his mind forcefully. Hanyou were not the only children born to the world suffering from chronic and severe health issues. Pure-blooded children of every species had frighteningly high chances of arriving in the world with the deck stacked against them. Youkai children were increasingly born with the type of allergies that kept Nonny underground. Sesshoumaru had a couple distant relatives that were relegated to living permanently in either the antarctic or its polar opposite for medical reasons. They two were in desperate need of a change in topic, his mate wasn't even pregnant yet – worrying about such things now was more than a little premature. Sucking in a deep fortifying breath, Sesshoumaru moved back to the present abruptly. "Given that it is currently Christmas for the both of us, and we are both on the phone, perhaps it is time for the unveiling of gifts."

"You do so love to be present when I open your gifts," she chuckled before a rustling sound filled his ear as she moved, he assumed, to retrieve the box that he'd sent her.

"This Sesshoumaru will ensure that we both enjoy it a great deal more after we are through with this long distance difficulty."

"Next thing you'll be telling me that sex is part of every gift an inu bestows."

"Not every gift," he refuted her statement. "But it is usually the best part of the gifts that include it." Sesshoumaru tried to keep his thoughts away from the gift he had sent and how, under more normal circumstances sex would have had a great deal more to do with it. The last thing he needed to do right now was to lose control of himself and his insatiable libido.

"Open mine first," she called his attention back to the medium-sized box he had carried around in his duffel bag all day.

"Hn," as eager as he was to see what she had sent him, Sesshoumaru feared more that she would completely hang up on him after she got a look at what _he_ had gifted _her_. If he had her open her gift first, the desire to get his immediate reaction to the gift he'd received might be enough to hold her on the line. It didn't occur to him that if she hung up he could just call back. "Lady first."

"Isn't that saying supposed to be 'Ladies first'?"

"Perhaps, but given there is only one lady in this conversation, this Sesshoumaru feels the alteration was appropriate." He paused briefly to let that sink in before pressing the real issue a little harder, "this Sesshoumaru refuses to even remove the packing tape from the brown paper this gift was mailed in until you have unwrapped and exposed what I gave you."

"Seriously, Sesshoumaru, I really want you to open mine first. I want to know if I achieved what I was aiming for," her voice was soft and sober, devoid of the playful tones that had characterized most of the conversation so far.

"Then you had best start unwrapping," if she was so anxious to get his reaction, all the more reason he should want her to go first. Anything that increased the odds of his distant mate staying on the line for as long as possible was definitely warranted.

Something in his words must have tipped her off. "What did you do?"

"Something that may or may not get this Sesshoumaru in serious trouble. This fact is up in the air until you open your gift." His mate had a funny sense of humor. Some things she just chalked up to male desperation and some things she blew way out of proportion.

"How the hell did we get this backwards?" she muttered quietly annoyed by his high-handed behavior. "People are supposed try and delay someone else from opening their gift not rush it." Sesshoumaru relaxed when he could hear a blade slicing through tape and cardboard. He released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

The silent suspense kept him on edge as he waited for a gasp of realization or a shriek of indignation, anything that would inform him the moment was over. "What did you put in here? The holy grail or something? Nobody needs this much packing tape!"

Sesshoumaru's startled chuckle was breathless. He'd forgotten Inuyasha's over-enthusiasm with the tape gun. When the hanyou had heard who it was for, the boy had insisted on helping. Thing was, Sesshoumaru had already finished all but the final addressing and taping the box shut. Perhaps he shouldn't have chastised his half brother quite so sternly for the wasted tape. He'd needed the slight distraction as his brain kept swinging from her pending reaction to what she was reacting to and how his body reacted to the image the item brought to mind. He was no longer in danger of repeating that long ago valentine's fiasco.

A frustrated growl came over the line a moment later as he could only assume the female was still working to open the box his gift came in. "That does it!" she harrumphed grumpily, "I'm opening it from the bottom!" Sesshoumaru smiled indulgently, he'd personally done the taping on the bottom. There was definitely not an excessive amount of tape there. A sharp blade slid through the clear plastic smoothly. Her triumphant sigh communicated to him her success.

"Not much more to go mate," he soothed her, counting out all the steps left before he got her reaction to the hot little piece he'd sent her. Sesshoumaru was certain it was the right size given the articles of her clothing he'd received since their relationship began.

"Sesshoumaru," came the murmur. It wasn't the gasp he'd been hoping for or the shriek he'd been fearing. Sesshoumaru should have known his mate would find some middle ground to confuse him with. She was like that. Although...Kikyou could be like that too. Perhaps it was a common trait of females in general.

"This Sesshoumaru requests pictures," he went ahead and charged forward into the unknown. He didn't know what to make of her ambiguous reaction.

"Sesshoumaru," she repeated more sternly over the distant sound of his unwrapped gift being extracted from its packing. Silk was one of the quieter fabrics, so the gift itself was hard to hear over the paper and packing materials that had insulated it for travel.

"Mate," he returned blandly with bated breath.

"Open your gift now," she told him, equally as bland. And he understood her reaction now. She was punishing him in a miniscule way...maybe. There was still a wide gray area in his understanding of her mind. It was clear however that no more delay would be tolerated.

With miniscule effort he tore through the neat brown paper and tape with an internal sigh. The outer packing was apparently a very close skin to the gift wrap inside given that his claws tore through the festively colored thin paper inside when he cut open the tape holding the flaps closed on the box underneath the brown paper. Under all the packing he found a simple cedar box with a hinged lid. The unstained wood was decorated with a simple design burned into it, not unlike the scent box he'd sent her years ago. "Mate," he breathed as his clawed finger traced the bold lines in happy reverence. Even if the box was completely empty, Sesshoumaru could find no fault with the gift.

"It's not as elaborate as yours was," she answered without enthusiasm and he had a slight understanding of her reaction now. She's sent him a gift of deep emotional meaning and he'd sent her something teasing and risque. The gifts were unequal. "And it's not quite the same as a real scent box. I didn't have access to the necessary materials," she continued as he finally lifted the snug lid with a squeak of wood on wood. Inside he found small glass phials full of various unguents. "Instead I sent you samples of all the soaps and lotions I use regularly. I read that most youkai that rely on scent actually detect the individual components and identify different people by the unique combination of those separate elements." And so she had supplied him all the elements that she habitually used on her skin, hair, and suchlike. She'd even included, as he found tucked in a tight pocket just inside the lid, her own personal scent by including an article of clothing saturated in her pure unadulterated personal scent. In essence she'd reciprocated a gesture he'd made years ago.

Now Sesshoumaru felt like a heel. He'd gifted her with something he would enjoy more than she would. She'd sent him a gift that meant something to both of them, but more to him than her. Such was the point of gifting he supposed. He'd wasted an opportunity to court his mate by succumbing to a personal need to have her image.

Honestly, he wanted to be sure that the female who haunted his wet dreams and fantasies actually looked like the mate he hoped it was. But he could have requested pictures some other time. He could have asked for reassurance in some other way. Lingerie had never been his preferred method of viewing feminine flesh. Sesshoumaru had always preferred complete nudity to silky lace or under-wire. Not that his mate would have been receptive to photographing herself naked for his sake. But he'd skipped her sending him pictures of herself at all to asking for pictures of her in something a little more provocative than her underwear.

"I'll think about the pictures," she went on in a tone that told him they most likely would not be the pictures Sesshoumaru had originally envisioned. Not that he blamed her in any way. It wasn't quite the end to his holiday that he'd hoped for, but as he gently ran a finger over the carefully corked vials lined up tightly within the soft thin lining of the box, it wasn't precisely a bad ending to the day either.


	21. Roommates Must Die

Something incredibly sad happened this week. A comedic and dramatic actor who touched the lives of millions if not billions of people lost his battle with depression in a terrible act that left the world stunned and breathless with grief. With all the amazing things he did, this was a hard thing to hear. He taught us to believe in magic, laughter, love, and humanity. He made us believe that Peter Pan could fly even after he grew up, that Pop Eye was more than a two dimensional character invented to sell spinach, and that everybody could seize the day and find their own powerful voice. He taught us what was important for a family to be whole, that laughter could be found in tragedy and sickness, that love demands care, communication, and thought. He taught us that flaws were what made us memorable and perfect for each other. He did it in front of our faces, throughout our childhoods. He was there for many of us, our entire lives, making us laugh and cry and think and learn and believe and love and realize that the human experience is fragile and precious and difficult but _always_ worthwhile. He will be missed in the way that all bastions of strength are noticed after they are gone. His loss will linger like a family member you once held close and can never forget.

thank you Robin Williams, for being human and sharing that humanity with us. Rest In Peace. May your family find healthy paths to get through this loss and may we all act in ways that would make him proud of the impact he had on our lives, that what he gave achieved that which he most desired in the effort. Thank you for being human.

* * *

For the story, The only thing wrong with Sesshoumaru's actions in the last chapter was timing. Kagome and Sesshoumaru have had occasional "play dates" by this point and Kagome has sent her mate articles of intimate clothing that she's worn. That he sent her a piece of lingerie is not unheard of considering the cultural connotations surrounding the holiday in Sesshoumaru's country. Think of it like, Boyfriends and lovers buying their ladies lingerie and nighties for Valentines day in the U.S. Though truly, Lingerie would be more commonly associated with White day in Japan, it's not unheard of to be gifted for x-mas too. Hell it's not unheard of for married couples to make such gifts at x-mas in Canada, U.S.A., England and most other countries that celebrate it.

It was just the reality of comparing what he gave to what she did. Kagome's gift was certainly the more thoughtful and romantic of the two, but it's not like Sesshoumaru had any warning of it coming.

On a side note, we're going to start getting away from the holiday chapters. The only reason the big events lingered around the holidays so far is because that was when Kagome would take a break. Another few months and she won't be beholden to a class schedule for breaks, but to rounds in a hospital.

Calendar: Early March.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Roommates Must Die**

Kagome quickly swept through the post office she occasionally frequented. Normally, Kagome would be stopping by around this time of year because White day was coming up and she knew that Sesshoumaru always sent a reciprocal gift in return for whatever she had sent him on Valentines. Not that she expected much gratitude for her gift this year.

Kagome had been teasing Sesshoumaru with his demand for pictures of that silly negligee he'd sent her at Christmas for the last few months. At first, she'd sent him memory sticks full of pictures of the red silk thing draped over just about every inanimate object she could think of. She'd photographed it slung over her unmade bed, propped up in the bottom of the tub, and wrapped around a large stuffed dog she'd borrowed from Ginta's baby sister. The smooth silk garment had been tied in knots, stuffed in a furred snow boot and pictured cavorting with the silk robe Sesshoumaru had sent her for their last anniversary.

When Sesshoumaru had seen fit to complain, Kagome had stepped it up a bit.

The red silk had looked strangely risque clothing her favorite body pillow, but then, she'd pinned it in several strategic places that had made the fluffy pouch look vaguely like a curvy, well proportioned female body. Kagome had done something similar with a handful of terry cloth towels, the texture somehow conveying the possibility of soft fur in the edited image. Of course, it still wasn't quite what he was looking for.

Sesshoumaru had seen fit to add qualifiers to the initial request for pictures. He'd requested that she actually be in them. She'd met his request by snapping a ton of pictures of the red silk draped over a foot, her ankle, her hand smoothing the fabric of the nightwear as it lay on her bed or over the back of the couch. Kagome had even used the red silk to cover her head entirely in one picture. That one had taken some planning and no little time until she got the angle just right. Eventually she'd nailed it.

For valentines day, she'd enlisted the help of her roommate and his new lover. Sesshoumaru was just lucky that Brett was completely dressed underneath the smooth silk and not passionately necking with his new boyfriend, Germaine. The two had been a serious item since they'd met up helping some local kids put together a holiday pageant back in December. Both were prone to subjecting others to rampant PDAs that were likely to make an inu uncomfortable.

Germaine was a student teacher, and while he wasn't OUT to the public in general, his family and close friends were all aware that boys, and especially Brett, flipped his switches. Her roommate was thriving in this new relationship. Brett was free of all the insecurities that had plagued his last relationship and it showed in his great desire to show it rather blatantly before those in the know. The two were completely hung up on each other now that they were embroiled in that golden phase that marked the start of a good, long-term partnership. Brett very seldom brought up his ex-lover with or without Germaine present and Kagome preferred it that way. She no longer had to stridently avoid the subject anymore. Walking on eggshells in her own home was a horrendous way to live.

Louis-san, what little she saw of him, was clearly kicking himself over the way things had turned out. Sometime back in January, he'd had the nerve to approach Kagome, asking about Brett. Her answers had been succinct and discouraging. The french-Canadian law student had wanted to know if she thought there was a chance of meaningful reconciliation. Brett's new relationship hadn't been in her purview much at the time, but she knew that even if Germaine didn't work out, Louis hadn't a prayer. Her emotional Roommate roller coaster may not have completely ended, but there was no way it was going backwards now. Brett had tasted a life in which he was not the skeleton in his beloved's closet and it appealed. Unless Louis-san intended to bring his family in on his predilection for other boys and Germaine were out of the picture, Brett was never going back to that. Besides, Louis-san had never been playful enough for Brett – in Kagome's opinion.

She was seeing a tamer fun side to her roommate now that he wasn't being forced to keep it all quiet. Germaine had a sense of humor that meshed well with Brett's and both liked to play dress up with each other and anybody else they could get their hands on. Hence the volunteering to wear her Christmas Lingerie.

Brett had even offered to wear her Christmas lingerie the way it was intended, with nothing on underneath. Germaine had laughed and offered the same. Neither were fully aware of why she was torturing her caller, but both were certain Kagome was flirtatiously teasing him. And she was sure, despite being completely loyal when it came to boyfriends, Brett wanted "Mr. Sexy-Voice" to see him naked. Germaine lacked the necessary modesty to care who saw him naked. Both were a little drunk when they offered. Likely, they'd intended to tease and flirt with each other using her little silk nothing, but Kagome vetoed it.

Much as she felt Sesshoumaru deserved to be sent pictures of either or both males grossly under-dressed in the slip of smooth fabric, Kagome didn't really want to see it herself, let alone be in the room when Brett and Germaine allowed their teasing of each other to lead to the inevitable and preferred conclusion. Kagome didn't care to see that kind of action up close. It had nothing to do with the respective sexes of the partners. She really didn't want to see _any_body going at it that close to her person.

She wasn't a prude. Nudity didn't bother her. Kagome had been exposed to her roommate's naked rambling through their apartment enough that it didn't really phase her any more. Partially naked necking was completely different. Being subject to someone else in the throes of carnal passion while wielding her digital camera did not appeal in the slightest. It was bad enough having to put up with Sesshoumaru's near constant efforts to cajole her into participating in phone sex.

Occasionally, Sesshoumaru managed to achieve a certain amount of intimacy over the phone that included the carnal type of connection the horny inu seemed to crave. It just wasn't Kagome's preferred method of physical gratification. It was something she was learning about herself and her continued long-distance relationship with a mate she hadn't seen in person since the day he'd marked her without consulting her first. Since she'd received all those damn sex toys and allowed Sesshoumaru to verbally instruct her in how to use them a few times, Kagome had realized a growing desire for orgasm that simply wasn't being met with their electronic trysts and the occasional telephonic play date.

If her life had been allowed to follow it's natural course without inu youkai interference, Kagome would have been able to seek fulfilling sexual gratification with a warm-bodied partner any time she so chose. The anger and frustration felt over the reality of the path her life was taking instead was sometimes difficult to manage. Perhaps it was some delayed psychological affect she'd suffered from being marked against her will.

She'd thought she was over her annoyance and upset over that event, but Kagome should have known better. Something like that would effect her life in ways she still hadn't the experience to measure properly. It would probably be years before she identified all the repercussions derived from that one impetuous act of a male she'd hardly known.

Most days she had it all under control, her brain disconnected enough from this facet of her reality that she could focus solely on her studies. Kagome could be clinically detached when trying to memorize the anatomy and disease profiles for two species of beings. Especially when the youkai had so many subspecies with their unique little health quirks to get down without mixing them up in her head.

But the distraction of Sesshoumaru's carnal demands coupled with the roller coaster experience of soothing Brett's heartbreak and subsequent discovery of a new love had disrupted her status quo. She'd relaxed her guard since leaving home where Kagome had always been conscious of the danger of allowing her emotions free play, of being discovered for what she was. She'd locked her gestures of affection down into methods that required more than a spontaneous hug or touch.

Such was why she baked so much. When she'd roomed with Sango, Kagome had always done the cooking, keeping her roommate well fed and supplied with favorite treats. She loved Sango, but she'd never hugged her. She'd been able to get away with it because the culture was not openly tactile. Western cultures were different.

Brett had been springing hugs on her almost from the first week. Two years and a tsunami disaster into her schooling here and she'd dropped her rigid efforts to conceal her power. An emotionally unstable roommate later and Kagome had begun torturing Sesshoumaru as a petty recompense for the newly risen upset at missing the years of her life where she was supposed to explore her sexuality with miscellaneous partners and experiences due to being locked into a monogamous relationship with a male she couldn't risk coming into contact with for several more years.

And the torture had been petty.

Kagome might have initially thought he deserved it, and he might have a little. She might have believed she was justified and perhaps the first couple memory sticks were. But as Brett pointed out as soon as he'd learned exactly what she was doing, three months was bordering on cruel for something that was really very small. Sesshoumaru might have thought he was being romantic. He might have been looking to develop a little better rapport over the sex subject. Considering how their mutual nationality generally viewed that particular holiday, her gift was probably the bigger surprise. Not exactly inappropriate, but unusual in type for a romantic holiday in which Sesshoumaru had already related parts of his family spent mostly engaged in some sex act or another.

Kagome had really set herself – and him – up for the situation that developed. Brett had been appalled when he learned that she'd sent the pictures of him in the silk negligee to Sesshoumaru for Valentines.

Her roommate had insisted she make amends by taking the pictures her "beau" had really wanted, Kagome dressed in the red silk and nothing else. Brett had ambushed her coming out of the shower by stealing the clothes she'd originally brought with her and replacing them with the garment in question. Her choices had been to attempt walking past him in her towel or to wear it. Knowing Brett, the towel wouldn't have made it more than two feet beyond the door, especially given that he'd been waiting for her to open the door with her digital camera in hand. The brain-girl had threatened to take the pictures for her if she didn't do it herself.

Kagome had relented. Resent her roommate as she might, in that moment she wasn't so silly as to believe that Brett would maintain the secret of her identity when he did it. Partly because she didn't think he'd believed her when she told him Sesshoumaru didn't know who she was.

To insure that she took the pictures she was supposed to, Brett had secretly removed every other article of clothing that had been in her room – even the dirty stuff. In the end, she managed to snap half a dozen pictures in various provocative poses while maintaining the mystery of her identity. Of course it took a great deal more than a half dozen tries to achieve those successes and having those successes approved by her strict roommate. Once he'd okayed the ones she'd selected he insisted she beef up the selection.

Brett believed in variety and choice. He also believed in dressing himself and her up in costume at every legitimate opportunity. Every Halloween, New year and birthday party for Brett saw her dressed in some themed costume or another at his direction. Her first Halloween saw her and all the other bartenders at the coffee bar dressed as medical practitioners. Brett dressed as a surgeon splattered with fake blood while Kagome had been stuck dressed as an angel of mercy – old-fashioned nursing outfit, cape and all. She had been naturally reluctant to be photographed in that get up so all shots of it had been taken candidly in the midst of a crowd. They didn't even require doctoring to obscure her face. As were all other pictures of her in costume.

That New Year, Brett had wrangled her into a Sailor V fuka and mask. His birthday in May saw her in a pinstripe mini-suit with fedora dipped low over her face and armed with fake Gatling standing behind Brett as a gangster moll. That Halloween had seen a flurry of catholic religious figures working the coffee bar. She'd been a nun and Brett a bishop. Her boisterous roommate had even convinced the manager on duty to dress as the pope. It was funny that Sesshoumaru hadn't believed her when she'd said she was dressed that way.

New year left them all looking for a yellow brick road with her wearing the ruddy uncomfortable ruby slippers. Brett's birthday Maskerade had been canceled in lieu of Kagome recovering from her brief bad health after the tsunami disaster hit Sendai and rocked the whole of her home country.

Her third Halloween away from home found her in clothing her grandfather had always dreamed of, only slightly perverted to show more skin than the shrine version of a miko. Brett had found himself a purple version of a Buddhist monk's robes he'd been tickled to wear. Purple had such societal connotations in western cultures these days. The rest of their coworkers had dressed along similar themes.

She'd been free of Brett's costume demands at New Year due to his new relationship and a desire to nurture that faint connection in romantic seclusion. But Valentines had found her dressed as a goddess of love with Brett playing love archer on Germaine at the impromptu party put together by the other grads. Germaine was either meant to be Narcissus or a male Psyche. She hadn't bothered to ferret out which. But those last pictures had rounded out things rather nicely, her faux gold mask and flowing white robes had seen to that. She'd had enough for the digital frame she'd sent the pictures of Brett, the towels and body pillow in.

Once she'd informed her roommate she was done, the brain-girl insisted she mail it out immediately after adding a note that Kagome had hated writing. Brett had insisted that just sending the pictures originally requested wasn't enough, but he wouldn't allow her to just write an apology. Oh no, she'd had to instruct Sesshoumaru to call her the minute he received the memory stick and that he would find her dressed in the crimson silk and willing to do whatever he told her to.

Brett had also made sure to watch her seal the envelop before she left and was timing how long it took her to drop it in the mail and return to the apartment. He'd taken her means of paying for another envelop and stamps. There was no chance she could remove the missive and just send the memory stick.

Or rather there was, if she believed she could put up with Brett pouting at her endlessly for another few days the way he had been since he'd found out what she'd been doing to "Mr. Sexy Voice". But Kagome had already caved into the pressure. And mild guilt. Once she'd realized _what_ was driving her continued effort to deny his request the remorse had been even more distracting than the very vocal righteous scolding from her roommate on her mate's behalf. And she couldn't afford to be _that_ distracted right now.

One night of semi-forced long-distance sex play and a hand full of semi-nude pictures was a great deal more manageable than long term guilt trips from her roommate and continued complaints from Sesshoumaru. The sad thing was, while Sesshoumaru often tried to persuade her to play with the unwanted adult toys she'd been gifted while on the phone with him, it was her roommate that was practically forcing the issue.

Kagome wouldn't back out on something she had already promised Sesshoumaru, but Brett had coerced her into making the promise to be waiting for him to direct their interaction. There was little doubt in her mind how Sesshoumaru would want that call to go with the pictures he would have just received. She was certain even Brett knew how it would go since he was already planning to stay over at Germaine's the entire week that Kagome estimated the memory stick would fall into her mate's hands.

"Did you mail it?" Brett demanded the minute she opened the door after finally getting the lock to open up. Her long walk in the cold had numbed her hands since her roommate had shoved her out the door without gloves.

"It's been posted," she replied sullenly while struggling to unzip her bulky coat. It was times like this that Kagome was thankful she would be living in California next year. As she understood it, the climate was a bit closer to that of Tokyo than any part of Canada was. She would certainly be happy to live without wearing her Winter coat so much of the year.

The obstreperous male raised a perfectly arched eyebrow at her with a disbelieving hum. "Turn out your pockets." Kagome threw her coat at him, insulted that he didn't believe her. With a sharp glare, she shoved past him and headed for her room. If he wanted her pockets turned out, he could do it himself. The only pockets she'd had were in that coat.

"I really think that was a bit much, Brett," she heard Germaine murmur just before she slammed the door closed.

It was one of the things she liked about Brett's new boy. Brett had a bad habit of pushing things too far. Germaine never failed to point it out. It had been a tough thing for Brett to accept at first, but lately he seemed to defer to his lover's judgment of a situation.

Louis had never done that. He'd ignore Brett's behavior for the most part, or avoid him for a few days to get the point across. Brett had often had a difficult time interpreting what his ex had meant at such times because Louis would sometimes ignore Brett for a few days for other reasons too. And sometimes just because he was so involved with his studies and didn't mean anything by it at all.

At least with Germaine that ambiguity wasn't there.

Kagome hadn't suffered from Brett's personality as much when he was dating Louis, but that was more because the two had spent most of their free time together in Louis' apartment. Limited exposure had glazed over any real difficulties to the roommates getting along. Germaine, on the other hand, spent as much time with Brett here as he did at home. Because of this Kagome was debating whether she wanted a roommate next year or not.

Her slowly warming fingers sought out her cell, waking it from standby mode to check if Sesshoumaru had called while she was out. Her departure had been too abrupt for her to grab the phone before she'd been summarily ejected from the apartment.

Seeing that he hadn't called, Kagome pressed send. She needed to vent about the evils of roommates with someone else who was also having roommate problems. Inuyasha and Kikyou were, mostly, considerate house companions but they still managed to irk Sesshoumaru periodically, jointly or by turns.

"Hello mate," his voice came rumbling across the distance after the first ring.

"Tell me again why I shouldn't kill my roommate?" Kagome demanded shortly.

The distant inu chuckled. That had been his question last week when Inuyasha had somehow managed to dump ink all over a major project due in one of his business classes. What's more, he'd somehow managed to break a permanent marker on the carpet and the fumes had sent Sesshoumaru running desperately for the outback for two full days after developing a severe nosebleed from exposure. She'd initially been so stunned by the question she hadn't been able to do more than gape at the phone.

"Nothing immediately comes to mind," he declared finally in mirror of what she'd told him at the time. "He's not family like this Sesshoumaru's roommates are. You're not standing in as his guardian, as this Sesshoumaru is for Inuyasha. His continued existence is not required to allow you to continue your studies. Really, there seems to be no drawback."

"I knew it," she replied with a mild grin. It was macabre thing to derive amusement from, but he knew she'd never follow through with violence on her roommate. She viewed him too much like a sister to really want him dead. Mostly.

"There is the reality that offing him might prevent you from attaining your goals in a timely manner," Sesshoumaru continued seriously. "A thing that this Sesshoumaru must protest against. You are already going to take a great deal of time to get where you want to go. It is better to achieve it without being delayed by incarceration for murder."

Kagome sighed sarcastically, "I suppose you're right. I shouldn't delay all the parents and children waiting for Hanyou medicine just because I really think my roommate should be put out of my misery."

"What did he do mate?"

"All sorts of things from taking my wallet from me and shoving me out the door into the cold without gloves and making me leave my phone behind." The last would have him taking her side she knew.

"These are truly terrible offenses," he gruffly agreed. "Perhaps not death worthy, but definitely worthy of some punishment."

"Well if not death, I suppose I could resort to ethnic cooking that turns his non-Japanese stomach," Kagome grinned evilly. There were a number of things she had grown up eating that Brett just couldn't stand her cooking, even if he wasn't going to eat it. "I'd have to go wrestle my coat and wallet from him to buy some of it though."

"Patience is often helpful in these types of revenge," Sesshoumaru offered academically.

"Yes, but with Brett it is better to insure the offense and punishment are not too far apart lest he fail to make the correct associations," she responded mildly. Slowly calming as they continued to discuss revenge against her roommate for offenses her mate didn't even fully understand. He didn't need to though, she just felt better knowing that he was on her side when it came right down to it. Even with the way she'd been slightly abusing him for the last few months.

"The same is true with many these days," he conceded gently. "Unless one is explicit in one's revenge it often misses the proper mark."

"Yeah," she lay back on the cushy surface of her mattress and drew the comforter up around her. "So how was your day?"

"Inuyasha and Kikyou have not managed to irritate me today."

Kagome had to laugh. He said it as if such was a rare occurrence when it really wasn't to her knowledge. Kikyou left him alone, once Sesshoumaru retreated to his room, and the woman was usually pretty good about keeping Inuyasha from being too obnoxious for his older brother to take.

"Ah, now it is much better," he added. "So, shall the annoying roommate live to see another day?"

"I suppose I can be lenient this once," her cheeks were beginning to ache with the strain of her grin after the exposure to cold and wind. "Besides, Germaine is here now to keep him well in hand. So long as I give them another thirty minutes of privacy neither is likely to be a bother for the rest of the day." That was something she'd learned the hard way. It was always best to let the two lovers to themselves for awhile immediately after Germaine tried to rein Brett in. They tended to get rather intimate as Brett tried to apologize to his boyfriend for taking things to far. And Germaine always tried to soften the criticism with some hardy canoodling.

It didn't happen every time, but every time it came up at the apartment the risk of being exposed to their making up ran exceptionally high.

"This Sesshoumaru is not likely to be so lucky."


	22. From Far Away

Life happens, and sometimes it's a good thing and sometimes it isn't. Most of the time it's hard to tell immediately after some event or circumstance just which way things will go. The point is that life will move in some discernible direction, altering your perception, your opinions, and your method of living. Some events are small, like reading a book that presents a new idea or watching a show that spawns a pattern of thought previously unexplored. Some events are huge, like a natural disaster or a terrorist attack. Most events turn out to be something in between, being more personal and impactful than something as impersonal as a book or a natural disaster. Sometimes the impacts are delayed, like Kagome's psychological reaction to the beginning of her relationship with Sesshoumaru. Some are more immediate like Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru transplanting to Australia.

The thing about life and the paths it takes, is that it never completely stops and it never adheres to plans. Life changes us and in turn we change what we want out of life. Continuously from now until the future.

Life for Kagome and Sesshoumaru is about to get very turbulent. Things are going to happen in a rush, going in stops and starts and headlong races and bewildering eddies. Just thought I'd warn you in advance.

Calendar: Early May.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**From Far Away**

Sesshoumaru laid staring at his ceiling for the third day in a row. He'd originally planned to be packing this week. Classes finished up for the term four days ago and he and his two flatmates should have been packing to return to Japan. Much as they all would enjoy staying, none of them had expected their stay in a foreign country be extended for anything. Inuyasha's mother surely couldn't stand to be parted from her boy for so long and if he had to return home then so did Sesshoumaru. Well, to his apartment separate from the pack but the end result was in essence the same.

He'd been pretty much resigned and almost ready to return where the food tasted right and the city scents were all familiar as only Tokyo could be. He couldn't imagine how his mate could stand to be gone from all that was familiar for as long as she'd been. She had been far from home for three years already and she was moving on to another school in a different foreign country without even visiting her childhood home.

Sesshoumaru had already notified the Maxwell's about his coming return home when a phone call had come in from the Taishou alpha.

Two weeks ago, his world changed and all three of them had been notified that there was no need to pack up. They weren't coming home.

The reprieve would have been more than welcome if not for the reason they'd been given an extension.

The senior Taishou, the grandfather who had taught Sesshoumaru the traditions he was even now using to court his mate, had succumbed to the radiation permeating the countryside. He hadn't been the oldest member of the pack, the weakest, or even the most senile, but he hadn't withstood that second dousing of radiation and stress as well as some of the others. Perhaps it had something to do with his senility and penchant for wandering. There were times when his grandfather had managed to make it beyond the environs of the pack properties. Going so far out from the main house would up his exposure to the pollutants so detrimental to youkai health.

The barriers erected and maintained on the property were helping to limit the exposure of the pack to the bad elements infesting the rest of the resources throughout the area. As such, most of the other members were staying inside it as much as possible. The pack was deteriorating more slowly than most of the other youkai clans in Japan, but they were still being exposed somewhat. The barrier around the Higurashi shrine was more effective than the one around the family estate.

Perhaps Sesshoumaru should have taken his grandfather out to the shrine when it was first suggested regardless of the difficulties and risks involved. It might have saved the old youkai's life. If the transfer of living situation from the pack estate to the Higurashi shrine hadn't killed him before that. And if Taishou Hiroyuki would have allowed it. If all of that had been successfully achieved, there was still the problem of the senile inu wandering aimlessly about.

Truly, there was no real way to have prevented the former alpha's death by radiation exposure. Intellectually, Sesshoumaru kept working the scenarios trying to come up with a different answer. It was almost torturous going over it again and again and coming up with no other answer than that the old male's death was quite possibly inevitable. His only reprieve since receiving the news were the hours when his very capable brain was forced to focus on the end of term exams he'd finished up three days ago. Then his only respite ended and he dropped into this apathetic state.

Emotionally, he was numb. He had been numb since those strangely flat words had crawled across the electronic connection to inform them that the only emotional support Sesshoumaru had grown up with in the pack was gone and that they were not expected, even allowed, to visit home to pay respects for the one who had gone from their lives. As an inu, it wasn't completely registering.

Sesshoumaru had been to funerals before, he recognized the scent of ashes associated with the cremated remains of the deceased. He was even able to distinguish under the charred carbon scent the personal undercurrents that identified a set of ashes as belonging to one individual rather than another. That his grandfather's scent didn't surround him or permeate his home was a long standing state of affairs that wouldn't change with his death. He needed that scent to fully acknowledge it and then realize the need for mourning.

Inuyasha had begun his howl of mourning before their father had been able to finish speaking. Kikyou had stood beside him and offered comfort the hanyou had obviously needed and wanted. But Inuyasha was half-human. His senses were not quite those of a full inu. It was likely that Inuyasha relied on other methods of discerning his environment and the presence or absence of his pack.

Perhaps the elder inu's absence was real enough for his half brother without the scent of grandfather tainted ashes. Such would be enough for most humans and certainly it was for many youkai species with weaker olfactory abilities. It just didn't seem real to Sesshoumaru without it. And it would never seem real until he caught that scent. His brain argued with his instinct. His intellect numbed out other emotions but the ones that should be felt at the death of a beloved pack mate and his instinct failed to produce the sense of mourning his mind kept urging.

He was confused.

"Sesshoumaru!" Kikyou called loudly through the apartment from the front door. It was unusual for her to call him for anything, but the strangeness of the situation didn't even register his curiosity. "Sesshoumaru come and help me with this oversized piece of cardboard! It has your name on it!" He could hear her struggling with something as she attempted to maneuver through the heavy door with whatever it was. He hoped it was something sturdy as she bumped it solidly against the door frame a couple of times. "I mean it! Get your butt out here!"

Finally Sesshoumaru managed to rouse the necessary feelings of responsibility to stir from the surface of his bed. He was a little unsteady for a moment given his three days of inactivity had included three days without sufficient food and water, but he managed to exit his room and make his way to the struggling female. She was right though. The package was unusually elongated and rather large, if a bit flat. And it did have his name on it.

Sesshoumaru hadn't been expecting a package from anyone. His mate had no reason to send him anything as he hadn't talked to her...since finding out. He hadn't realized that until just now. After taking the awkward parcel from his flatmate he dug into the pocket of his jacket hanging by the door to check his phone. It was off.

He never turned it off, which meant the battery had run down without his noticing. There was no doubt in Sesshoumaru's mind that she would be worried about him by now. Even her final exams couldn't fill all the hours of her day and her increased irritation with her roommate in recent months had only driven her to call him more often just to vent. It was even more unusual that he hadn't called her to do the same about Kikyou and Inuyasha lately.

"Who do you know in Canada?" Kikyou inquired of him. This was probably the first of his packages that she'd ever seen. Sesshoumaru was the one who normally checked the mail. He was normally the first home after it was delivered and he usually got the most packages. As far as she knew, everything he received was from Japan.

He didn't feel like explaining to her, but he didn't mean to be rude either. In effort to avoid having to answer, Sesshoumaru carried his package into the living room to set it on the solid little table Inuyasha normally used as a footstool when watching television while Kikyou went and dropped her book bag off in her shared room. The female was meticulous like that. Normally he appreciated it, but right now he couldn't bring himself to care.

"Are you going to open it?" she asked when she returned, slightly surprised to find him just sitting there staring blankly at the brown box with the Canadian address. The inu blinked at her before he leaned forward and slid a claw through the mailing tape effectively opening it. Then he slid back in his seat without finding out what the two cardboard flaps hid from sight. With a huff she settled on the carpet between the settee and the floor table and finished the job herself. "Oh Sesshoumaru," Kikyou whispered after sifting through the packing materials to pull out a piece of wall art that incorporated a series of varied size picture frames. Each frame held a different picture of Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru's grandfather. "Look." She handed it off to him. It was then that he noted his hands were unexplainably trembling.

Nearly every photo held Sesshoumaru and the old inu, but the picture that held pride of place contained both Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha, each holding a hand of the now deceased inu and looking rather solemn. Kikyou sifted a bit more in the box and found almost a dozen more frames, these without pictures yet and a letter of explanation. She glanced up at her soon to be in-law and realized that it might be better for her to convey the message it contained right now.

Sesshoumaru had seemed rather lost these last few days and it was hard for her to tell what he was paying attention to. Inuyasha was worried, and Kikyou had learned that when her hanyou worried about someone there was a real reason for it.

Kikyou hadn't a clue how to comfort Sesshoumaru. There hadn't been much of a chance to acquaint herself with his personality under more normal circumstances given Inuyasha's general state of insecurity. Inuyasha demanded her undivided attention when he was home and the elder inu was off-limits when Inuyasha wasn't home. Her lover was somewhat possessive given his inu youkai heritage and the continued state of promised-but-not-quite mates. Her hanyou lover would not settle until things were taken to the final unequivocal ending point of marked and committed mates.

Sesshoumaru had understood it and, despite being mated himself and fully committed to being faithful to that distant, absent mate, made certain not to agitate Inuyasha over Kikyou. In general, if Kikyou was home without her love, Sesshoumaru made himself scarce. Most times, she didn't know if he was in the flat with her or not. He locked himself up in his room or escaped into the wilds of Urban Brisbane. She probably imagined he had someplace he went to on days there were no classes, but the information had never been imparted to his flatmates explicitly.

Such had not changed much in the last handful of days, except that now, Sesshoumaru laid in his room with door open for any to see, and continued to skip meal times. Kikyou refused to cater to his sudden refusal to leave his room and never left meals outside his door, but she still cooked his share and saved it for him. Inuyasha had been certain to tell him so, as had Kikyou herself, though her communication was usually delivered in huffier tones than the hanyou seemed capable of in recent days.

In many ways, Inuyasha was doing better than Sesshoumaru, but neither was actually doing _well_. Pack was important to inu. The loss of pack included rituals of mourning. Family rites that initiated and assisted in the processes of letting go of ties to the deceased, realizing the open hole in the pack, and closing it while maintaining the memory of the one now missing. That neither was allowed to return home to participate in any such marks of a fellow youkai passing from their lives was a hardship both could do without.

Kikyou had naturally been assisting Inuyasha, offering him comfort from the time of his initial outburst upon delivery of the news. Perhaps the gift from Sesshoumaru's mate could offer a way to ease Inuyasha's upset while helping Sesshoumaru. Such had to be the reason she skimmed her eyes over the explanation note rather quickly, gleaning the general message without attempting to pick up or remember the exact wordage. He appreciated her effort to respect his privacy, or rather he would if he felt anything at all at the moment. If he wanted specifics, he could read his own mail personally. "It says that she heard about your loss and expects that you're having difficulty accepting it and moving on."

Momentarily, Sesshoumaru wondered how his mate, loaded down with medical boards and finals and moving plans could have heard about his loss. Then he thought about it more closely, his beleaguered brain appreciated the brief break from the spiral of self-recrimination and desperate questions to find someway that his grandfather's death could have been prevented. His loss was Inuyasha's loss. Both brother's had become part of the Sanctuary family network. The news would spread to all members who cared for either brother. That was likely how it had been communicated to his female in her own foreign country.

"A previous loss of the sender is recounted and her method of coping related. She says that having pictures of her grandmother around helped her remember the important times before the loss. Pictures of them together. Pictures of experiences shared triggered memories of important events and advice given. She knows inu rely heavily on scent, but death is not the end of the people we love. It takes a part of them from us, keeps us from creating new memories but it cannot rob us of previous interactions and things we remember about them. She thinks the pictures will help you focus on that aspect of your grandfather rather than the reality that you have been denied the regular mourning rites."

"She also says that the pictures she included were only ones she found in the public record. She sent the empty frames thinking you might have more personal, intimate photos you would like to put out." Kikyou handed the message to the big inu clutching the filled frames in his lap. "Your mate might have a good idea. It is better to remember how he lived than how he died. Especially given that you can't fulfill the instincts required to identify him as truly dead. We can put the pictures up all over the apartment. I don't know why we didn't think of it before."

Sesshoumaru stared at her a moment before glancing back down at the images peering at him from the various frames. There was the picture from the first time he'd been dropped off at school. His grandfather stood smiling him off from just inside the open door of the limo. There was a picture from Sesshoumaru's court case against the intrusive photographer from his early teens, both of them standing in front of the court house wearing similar gray suits. His father had refused to be seen with Sesshoumaru for months before and after that day but his grandfather never left him to face the press alone.

There was picture from the opening of a new baseball stadium. Sesshoumaru had remembered being incredibly excited about attending. He'd been five at the time, Inuyasha hadn't been born yet and he hadn't been cognizant of the fissures present in his family. He'd later learned that Hiroyuki hadn't taken him or cut the ribbon because Izayoi had been finding out she was pregnant with his half brother. His grandfather had been there though. His grandfather stood behind him as he, Sesshoumaru, was asked to cut the ribbon in his father's place.

So many moments his grandfather had filled in for Hiroyuki. Taking the honor of that place willingly, even eagerly, over and over. Perhaps, as Kikyou said, his mate was right. Remembering his grandfather as he lived was a better way to honor the male who had taught him so much. It was more akin to the human method of mourning in Japan, and he would occasionally have to learn to deal with the altering of his family rituals.

Some day, in the increasingly near future, Sesshoumaru would sever ties with his father's pack. Then, the pack traditions would have to be modified to fit the needs of a smaller, less wealthy pack, but also one that was going to be rather diverse. The way of doing anything would be his to dictate, or perhaps it would be more like suggesting. His mate was very capable of thinking for herself and Inuyasha was contrary enough to fight him on anything that was dictated.

"Sesshoumaru, do you have any pictures you would like to add?" Kikyou asked him directly. Numbly, he nodded and stood from the couch, refusing to let go of the gift his mate had sent and the note she'd sent to explain it. Such things were precious to him even when he was too numb to feel their value.

He lead the way into his room and over to the shelves lining the floor next to his bed. Sesshoumaru levered himself down beside it, careful not to damage his precious burden. Once he settled with Kikyou beside him, one hand released its grip and reached for an album in the middle of the bottom shelf. There was no special organization or arrangement of the photos inside. No witty captions or titles noting the different times or events. It was simply full of candid shots taken by another member of the pack.

His grandfather had been marginally into photography, toting a camera around with him almost everywhere, but not many others in the pack were. Sesshoumaru's parents had certainly never cared enough to record the milestones of his life with picture evidence, so it was a miracle there were any private photos that contained both Sesshoumaru and his grandfather. The few he had were from a cousin, the only member of the pack who ran through rolls of film and memory sticks faster than the now deceased old inu.

There was even a picture of Sesshoumaru in inu form beside an equally furry grandfather on the day the boundaries were first shown to him. It was a rite of passage that should have been performed by Hiroyuki once again deferred unto the elder youkai.

It was beginning to hit him that Sesshoumaru lost more than just his grandfather. He'd lost his family. Inuyasha was barely pack on most days, and that only recently acquired. There was no shared experiences to tie them together like the ties of a normal family or even the core of a healthy pack.

Suddenly, Sesshoumaru didn't want to look at the pictures anymore. He snapped the album shut and pointedly handed it off to Kikyou, his face directed the other way. His detachment was slipping and he didn't want his reaction to show in front of his younger brother's betrothed.

"Sesshoumaru?" the female next to him questioned mildly before seeming to dismiss her own concerns. "Right, well, I'll check with Inuyasha to see if he has any more pictures and we'll pick the best of the lot later." The little human rose slowly from the floor cradling the photo book carefully as she left the room.

It wasn't until after Sesshoumaru managed to clear the excess water from his vision that he bothered to look the way she had gone, taking in the fact that his door had been gently closed behind her. Digging out the phone he'd retrieved earlier, the momentarily under control inu maneuvered himself, the wall art piece his mate had sent him and the note that went with it, over to the little table on the far side of his bed. His stunned fingers dug through the drawer, fishing out the cord used to charge his special cell and plugged it in.

The moment there was enough charge to turn it on, Sesshoumaru called Canada.

"Sesshoumaru?" came from the other end of the line before completing the first ring.

"He's gone, mate," Sesshoumaru nearly whimpered, choking on the words and fighting the saline running down his face.

"Oh, Sesshoumaru," her voice was soft, soothing in its way, but what really comforted him was the sudden feel of her old powerful soul touching his. She'd dropped her interference with the bond to let him feel her somewhere out there. "He's not really gone. Not the most important part of him. He's in you, where he's always been. Walking with you, whispering in your ear. Nagging at you when you do things you shouldn't. That's not going to go away. That will never go away."

"But-"

"I know," and he supposed she did know. She'd lost strong supports in the past. When her grandmother had died her own mother had been unable to marginally mollify the gaping void left in his mate's life. And given that her attention was so incredibly divided between the remaining family members of their contracted circle of kin, there was likely little effort made to attempt it. "You know, when I started putting pictures up to help me cope, it took my mom a few days to figure out that the pictures found randomly taped to the walls was my doing. It was another week after that before she finally let them stay put."

"There is no scent in pictures," Sesshoumaru pointed out, the words a little watery.

"There was no scent of him in your flat either," she pointed out gently. "Does the continued absence mean more now than it did before?"

"He is gone," he repeated.

"Who taught you about courting? Who saw to it you learned the history of your pack?" she countered. "Who taught you self-discipline? Who guided you through the urges of your instinct until you were secure in your control of them? Did you suddenly forget it all?" She huffed at him, "Those lessons are still there. If you try hard enough you can still hear them related in his voice. What makes him more gone now than when you could only reach him by telephone and then only when he was having a good day, when he was lucid enough to remember that _he_ was still there? He is still with you in all the ways that matter, Sesshoumaru."

"He was my family."

"He still is," she soothed him. "but so is Inuyasha and Kikyou, and me. And you're sharing him with us in all the ways he shared himself with you, the way things were meant to be. Someday you'll teach all those things your grandfather taught you to the next round of inu to use and he'll be there then too."

"What should this Sesshoumaru do?"

"First, you're going to think about your grandfather and all the things you did with him. The good things, the bad things, the things neither of you shared with anybody else. And you're going to feel whatever comes with the memories, without shame, without interference. Then, when Kikyou calls that dinner is ready, you're going to eat it with her and Inuyasha. You'll probably discuss which pictures to put up or where to place the ones that have been chosen. Then you'll get in the shower and scrub away any trace of the last few days until you feel clean, warm and exhausted." She sighed quietly against his ear. "You'll get the first restful nights sleep you've had in a long time without the thought of an alarm to wake you in the morning."

"Those are mundane things," he muttered.

"Mundane are the ways of life," she returned. "If you want something more spectacular, go for a run tomorrow. Run out to the Maxwell's and tell them about the change in circumstances. If you feel uncomfortable in the telling, call me and I'll do the telling, but you've got to have something to do. I know school's out and I'm fairly sure it's too late for you to sign up for any of the classes you need, unless you were interested in general program entry level classes."

Sesshoumaru's disdainful scoff was enough of a response.

"Mostly, grieving takes time, Sesshoumaru. One day at a time, everyday just like the last, another day in which you get used to the reality that, while you'll never forget the things you used to do with your grandfather, he's not there to actively participate in things anymore. That's just life and then death after it."

Which was true enough he supposed, though Sesshoumaru didn't want to admit it at the moment.


	23. The World Around

Sometimes the worst part about losing someone dear is the fact that life doesn't stop. There are still responsibilities to be met, duties to be upheld, and when staying in a foreign country or renting an apartment, legal things that have to be taken care of. The world keeps going, time keep running past and while we just want to curl up in a ball and hurt, we have to keep up with it.

AS if to illustrate this, I'm off to work today!

Calendar: Early May.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**The World Around**

Kagome was pointedly packing her things in silence. Moving day was coming up fast.

Her roommate would normally insist such activity required background music blasting from every radio in the house. Brett would most likely also have the TV on with some movie playing at full volume on top of that. All that with Germaine waiting in the wings to turn all the ruckus into some spontaneous dancing which would lead to an uncomfortable situation for Kagome when they started to make out right in front of her. Again. None of it would really help with Kagome's packing and all of it would make it impossible to hear a phone ring.

Completely unacceptable. That was why she had pretty much kicked the boys out for the day.

If Sesshoumaru followed her suggestions, he would be running out to his art sensei's domicile when he woke up. The run would do him a mass of good. The shift to his furry side would help release some of the emotions his youkai pride bottled up and the exorcise would stretch all of the muscles that had tensed up in preparation for the finals he'd just gotten through. He always handled things better after a run. Kagome had no doubt that it would be easier for him to acknowledge and deal with the aftermath of his grandfather's death once he slipped into his natural fur.

Sesshoumaru needed to reconnect with himself. The run would serve that purpose better than putting up pictures and talking with his half-brother. He should never be so easily lead as to follow her suggestion verbatim; he usually wasn't. Kagome could only suppose it was the shock that had left him spinning like a compass needle without a proper North to point to. Though, it seemed an elongated period of time for it to be just shock working on his senses.

Kagome thought the inu was a little homesick, not for the pack so much as for his own space. For all that Sesshoumaru was inu youkai, he was a bit of a loner by nature. A pack could live on the great Taishou estate in Japan and still offer most of its members more privacy than Sesshoumaru could find in a flat built with more human tenants in mind. He couldn't escape the sounds and smells of his flatmates, or the people who lived around their little hole in the wall.

The Australian flat was a far cry from Sesshoumaru's skyline condo in Tokyo. Kagome hadn't even seen it but she knew that much. After all, she'd been privy to his complaints over their quick move when they left Tokyo and the results of such hasty decampment of Japan. There hadn't been much choice. They had to relocate quickly or risk the Taishou alpha changing his mind and rescinding his permission for the brothers to go.

But doing so had left them with little chance of finding and acquiring an appropriate domicile for youkai renters.

Sesshoumaru probably thought his desire to return home was just a need to return to the familiar. That may even be a part of it, but there was little doubt in her mind that what he really needed was space all his own. Space in which all he smelled was himself with sparse lingering scents of his pack. The only place he got something like that was when he ran furry through the Australian outback or paid for a hotel room. Neither of those were perfect solutions. Merely temporary band-aids on an ever growing problem.

She hadn't made the suggestion for Sesshoumaru to start looking for a better apartment yesterday. Their lease was probably soon up, notice of moving already given. They were most likely going to be required to find someplace else to live, even if they stayed in Brisbane another year complete. The hassle of moving was annoying at the best of times, but now it would be worse. Sesshoumaru, Inuyasha and Kikyou would need a new place almost immediately. They would have to pack in record time if they couldn't keep the place they had right now.

Kagome wouldn't have that problem, even though she was traversing a greater distance to get to her new place. It helped that there wasn't really that much to pack. She'd come from Japan with two suitcases full of clothes, a new laptop, cell phone, calling card, and a head ready to be filled with medicine. In the three years since she'd acquired more in the way of clothing, linens and knowledge, but she could still pack everything up in two suitcases, and three medium sized boxes. Well, most of it. Sesshoumaru's various gifts were frustratingly irregular and incredibly fragile, some of them. But, she wouldn't leave any of them behind.

She may occasionally be incredibly upset with him. There might be days when all Kagome wanted to do was cut him off completely for things she was slowly coming to realize had been stolen from her on that first night so long ago, but his gifts were precious to her. Sesshoumaru was the only male she would ever be intimate with, and he was trying to make good on all of it. Some days she even thought they would have a good relationship once all was said and done.

For now, he was something more than a friend, and he needed her. Besides, it was a good excuse to lie to her roommate without stirring her conscience over it. She'd had to tell her nosy roommate she had a headache to get him to leave. Brett was more than prepared to help her pack if only to criticize the various articles of her clothing, lamenting the limited selections until he insisted on dragging her out shopping. Germaine would be completely on board with that plan as he was the one who'd infected Brett with the passion for fashion. Up until this spring, Kagome could get away with wearing the same things over and over again without comment so long as she washed them in between.

Germaine must have made some comment to Brett about her clothing choices because her closet wasn't her own after that. She could only be thankful that neither one started to wear her clothes around the house. Well, besides that negligee she was punishing Sesshoumaru with around Valentine's day, but that was at her own instigation.

Kagome found it rather odd that their joy for women's fashion was limited to putting it on her rather than trying it out on themselves. Brett had been nagging at her to use her surplus funds from her scholarship to beef up her fashion collection and she was getting incredibly tired of it.

She had enough eating into her brain without having such useless nonsense on top. Kagome didn't care about designer anything unless it was a newly designed surgical clamp that might have some bearing in her future development of hanyou medicine. She didn't want to hear about accessories unless they were accessories to evaluation equipment that could enhance and speed up the diagnosis of some hanyou ailment. Color coordination really didn't have a place in her life beyond its application in a filing system that would help her recall previous cases of a specific set of symptoms and their associated illness.

Her way of guaranteeing her clothes matched was to buy practically everything in the same range of colors. The only trend Kagome ever intended to follow was that of her patients on the mend. The only fad she wanted to start was a shrinking statistic of hanyou adolescent deaths. Babies should be able to grow up no matter what their species. If they died of their own stupidity after that, well there was nothing that could be done to prevent that.

Kagome huffed and tried to divert her train of thought. Normally she wasn't so prone to commenting on the lacking mentality of her fellow young people, but she'd just found out Souta, younger brother extraordinaire, had broken his arm playing tag on the train with some girl. Apparently the pair were trying to lose her ex-boyfriend in the crowd changing from one train on a platform just before the doors close to get on another train that was also about to leave going the opposite direction. Souta had gotten squashed between a closing door and an irate passenger he'd rudely bumped into. Stupid boy. He could have fallen from the platform and gotten caught between the departing train and the lip of concrete platform placed to assist in passenger departure and loading. He could have fallen onto the tracks and gotten run over, electrocuted, or just plain killed. He was lucky he got by with just a broken arm, but he was still stupid.

She shook her head and tried again to focus her thoughts back on the effort of sorting her things and packing what she intended to keep in the boxes she'd picked up last week. Sesshoumaru didn't need carry-over annoyance from the stupidity of her younger sibling. And it was just stupidity. Souta didn't even really like-like the girl, to use his own immature terminology. In his ever so informed opinion the girl in question was better off looking to date other girls. Kagome wasn't sure that her reaction would be different if he _had_ been serious about the girl he was being so rambunctious with. Such behavior, if suggested by the girl, didn't inspire Souta's responsible big sister to welcome a relationship between the two. And if it had been Souta's idea, all the more reason not to wish him connected with the girl he was unnecessarily showing off for.

No, it was much better to focus her thoughts on what Kagome was doing right now and the expected call from the great down under. Sesshoumaru's issues were ones she had a great deal more sympathy for. It wasn't his fault his grandfather died. It also wasn't his fault he couldn't go home to observe the traditional mourning rites. To go a step further, it wasn't Sesshoumaru's fault that his grandfather had been the only emotional support in his life for the majority of his life. That was due to the lacking care of his parents. Though, Kagome wouldn't ever say that.

Kagome well knew that criticism of family by outsiders was the ultimate taboo. If Sesshoumaru ever mocked _her_ grandfather's senility, she'd jump all over him for it. So, even though her mate occasionally disparaged his parent's behavior, even if he invited her to agree with some censure he'd given over his alpha's treatment of himself or Inuyasha, Kagome would never state her true opinion on the situation beyond sympathizing with Sesshoumaru's frustration with them. Her stance on the subject wasn't just because he was her mate. She would be the same with any friend's parents.

She would not criticize or disparage anyone's family in front of them. However, that wouldn't stop Kagome from interfering in situations that were abusive and happening right in front of her. She was going to be a doctor. She was going to work with children. Her job was to improve the health of her patients, and if she had to remove negative outside influences to do that, she damn well would. Luckily, she had a few years before she was going to need that kind of aggressive courage. Right now, patient parents were kind of scary. In every case, one would be human and one would be youkai. Each would need a different kind of careful handling. Ugh.

There were plenty of studies about how even human health could be adversely effected by verbal, emotional and psychological abuse. Happy patients overcame illness faster, increased the odds of regaining health even in the worst situations, and generally had better immune systems to work with. Youkai were actually more influenced by their emotional well-being when it came to health than humans were. Strange as that may sound. Maybe she should look up each of the previous studies and keep up with all the new ones so that she could cite them whenever the issues came up. Her own medicinal path may be experimental, theoretical and untried, but that didn't mean other tried and true paths wouldn't apply.

Kagome carefully stretched the tape over the closed flaps of her now-filled box. Two others stood open in varying degrees of fullness. This was the first to be completed. She probably shouldn't have sealed it, all her things still had to pass through the border to the states, but taping it shut would make it easier to maneuver in the intervening time.

Brett and Germaine had every stubborn intention of driving her and her things out to her new apartment in California. Despite what they tried to tell her, Kagome was certain the draw wasn't curiosity over her new living arrangements, her new roommate, or her personal well-being. They were both convinced that if you were in California you had to be by the water, most likely a coastal beach. All of her efforts to tell them otherwise were completely ignored.

It wasn't that she didn't appreciate that they were doing her a favor. It wasn't that she didn't acknowledge the reality that Brett and Germaine's travel plans allowed her to save money on shipping expenses, but Kagome wasn't so certain the money saved was worth being trapped in a car with the both of them for the two days it would take them to get there. Add in that she wasn't going to be doing any of the driving herself, and she really began to wish that she was going to be flying. At least then her boredom would only last a few hours and wasn't likely to be interrupted by badly sung show-tunes screamed at the top of some very powerful lungs.

Brett and Germaine were capable of belting out songs for _hours_ at a time. Unfortunately, enthusiasm was not an equatable promise of ability. Brett couldn't find the right note in any given part of a song if it sat up and hit him in the face. Germaine had perfect pitch, but his timing was always just off enough to somehow completely negate the pleasantness of the sound. One trip home with Brett and Germaine over spring break had convinced her there was no worse way to travel.

Kagome sighed and folded away the blanket Brett's mother gave her for Easter. _That_ was something she was going to miss. Brett's family were close and they'd welcomed her in a rough and tumble manner that always reminded her of cheerful, rambunctious puppies. She may have always been just a guest in their house, but she always enjoyed watching their family interact. It was rarely as uncomfortable as being the interloper could be around most families she'd spent time with. Granted, the number _was_ limited, but the variations between the types of familial interactions seemed a good indicator of what it would be like around most families in the western world. Especially when the shows her roommate insisted on keeping up with added support to her suppositions.

Kagome only hoped that her family one day was more like Brett's or her own than Sesshoumaru's. Though, Sesshoumaru himself was a bit of a stoic, which leaned more towards a family like Louis-san's than Brett's. That might not be such a bad thing.

Given that her experience with Louis's family wasn't particularly ideal nor a great way to show off their loving relations. The entire family's penchant for jumping to conclusions from partial information really wasn't their fault given Louis's refusal to give them very important personal facts about himself. Kagome hoped that her someday's children never felt they needed to hide such things from her. They could hide them from Sesshoumaru, but not her, she chuckled to herself.

It was in that moment that the phone rang with her expected call.

"Moshi Moshi," Kagome answered after accepting the call.

"This is Nonny," came from the other end.

"Hello Nonny-san," Kagome smiled into the phone. She'd been rather certain Sesshoumaru wouldn't feel up to talking about his situation or his feelings. Such personal issues were far too private for such overt communication. "You'll have to forgive Sesshoumaru for not talking for himself, he's been suffering from a lot of stress."

"I figured it was something like that when he showed up on the front stoop without bothering to change before coming inside."

"He's probably feeling a bit raw right now. I knew he needed a good run," she replied to Nonoka's incredulous observations. "The family has suffered a recent, sudden loss, and he's having difficulty accepting the reality of it. He and his brother have been commanded to extend their stay in Australia without even a short trip home. Inuyasha's handling it well under the circumstances given his hanyou status and on-site girl fiend for comfort, but..."

"But Sesshoumaru is full inu and cannot accept what his nose cannot confirm for him," Nonoka Maxwell sighed.

"Yes," the packing miko nodded needlessly. "I tried to help a bit, but I'm all the way out here and it was two full weeks before he called me after hearing about it. And he went almost completely catatonic after he'd finished up his exams. I've just gotten back into contact with him."

"Hence the run," the old cat muttered.

"You were the closest comfort I could offer him," Kagome added. "He respects you. Maxwell-san is good at keeping him busy and challenged without causing him unneeded stress, and you," she paused briefly wondering how she could say it without upsetting the feline youkai she'd never met. There really wasn't a way that was entirely tactful and quite frankly, Kagome didn't think the neko would really care. "You mother him more than he's ever had before. More than he'd ever allow anyone else to do, anyway."

"You're foisting him off on us?" Kagome could swear she heard an eyebrow raised through the phone. "You're asking us to doctor the boy's emotions?"

"You don't have to if you don't want to," Kagome declared stoutly. "I just thought that Maxwell-san could keep him busy. Give his mind something else to work on than the spiraling stream of maddening what-ifs."

"Well, I suppose that's a given," Nonny sniffed daintily. "Maxi took one look at our canine-shaped guest and practically dragged the furry boy off to the studio to assign him a new task. I, however, demanded an explanation. We rather expected Sesshoumaru to have left the country already after all."

"He did too," Kagome murmured sadly. "I don't know if he'll be able to set up anything for the coming semester on such short notice. I don't know if he'll have to move out of his current residence. But I do know that he hasn't much time to get it all taken care of before his visa expires. And I know he's not in any shape to take care of it all right now."

"Well we could-"

"No." Kagome cut off the offer before it could be made. "This is something they have to take care of themselves, Nonny-san. I can't ask you to take care of just Sesshoumaru, because it isn't just him. It's a group, a pack cut off from home by the alpha in charge. The alpha who didn't want to admit to the danger until one of his people died for it. Then he wanted to swing to the other extreme without warning, again hurting the members of his pack. It shouldn't be you taking care of it. It shouldn't even really be Sesshoumaru, but it's going to have to be."

"That's a bit harsh," Nonoka Maxwell observed.

"Life is sometimes," Kagome admitted unhappily. "Much as I would like for you to do those things so Sesshoumaru won't have to, he is the heir to the alpha, next in line and when the alpha himself does not see to the specific needs of some pack members, it is Sesshoumaru's job to do it. At least until he is no longer the heir. If he doesn't do the job, I think he would take it worse in the long run," she continued solemnly. Sesshoumaru took care of his responsibilities. He may have been left out of the pack in all the most important ways, but when allowed, he did the job he was supposed to do. That was just who he was.

If something needed to be done and he was supposed to do it, Sesshoumaru just got it over with. The same applied to tasks he set for himself. It was the same character trait that had gotten him in trouble the night he marked her.

Sesshoumaru's freight train determination, full speed ahead approach to any situation presented to him, was standard. Even when the situation in question happened to be one in which the inu had no idea what he was doing. Some people admired that kind of single-minded, achieve results mentality. Kagome would admire it more if those results were consistently positive. If that meant stopping and rethinking or reassessing a situation to obtain better results, well, that would certainly be worthier of idolization in her estimation.

Besides, if Nonny tried to take care of Sesshoumaru, the male might take it as trying to usurp his position of alpha in his sub pack. That would only be another blow on top of the death of his grandfather, the increased homesickness with no end in sight, and Kagome's own continued resistance to attending him in person during his time of need. "Nonny-san, he respects you. He likes you, but you're not so intimate with his pack for Sesshoumaru to feel comfortable with you standing in as alpha for him."

"Oh, I hadn't thought of that," Nonny muttered. "Dogs are so ridiculously complicated. Packs and alphas. It's all unnecessarily convoluted."

Kagome chuckled, "It's not just an inu thing. It's also a male thing. Much as Sesshoumaru could probably use the reprieve, his pride couldn't handle the favor from someone outside of his immediate pack. That you are female will make it even worse in his eyes. That whole protect the women type of thing."

"True," the old neko agreed. "I've not had to deal with that sort of male behavior in a long time. Maxwell has no need to get that way since we both live in a whole in the ground." Nonny gave a nostalgic sigh, "You should have seen him when I first started having trouble during my pregnancy. It was "sit down" and "back to bed" and "where's your inhaler" from morning till night. And when it never got better, he bought all this land way out here in the middle of nowhere. It was quite a rough transition. I was such an urbanite then, but I couldn't breath at all within miles of the city. Then he suggested building our home underground and I could have had a fit. Buried alive without real contact with the outside world. I couldn't imagine a worse idea. But I haven't had a bad relapse in years, decades really. Once construction was complete our world was carefully insulated from everything that ailed me. Then there wasn't a reason for him to act that way anymore. Just me harassing him about his diet. And I haven't had to suffer reprisals on that front since the last time we had the vents cleaned out. But I suppose I concur. If the rolls were reversed, Maxi would still be reeling from the blow to his ego after all these years, whereas I have accepted it already and found joy in my subterranean home."

"So really, you just need to see that he eats, like you normally do and let Maxwell-sensei keep Sesshoumaru busy. That's all he really needs from you. A place he can go where he can temporarily forget the harsh turns his life has taken just now. Allow him to resume the mantle of his responsibilities when he goes home and he'll be the more grateful for it. And if not grateful, then simply better off," Kagome concluded.

"We can do that."

"Thank you. And when he's feeling better, Sesshoumaru will probably show his gratitude somehow too. Though he may not thank you for everything, he will show his overt appreciation for some of it," Kagome added before the cat tendered her farewells and the distant miko reciprocated. It was time she got back to focusing on her packing anyway. Her time alone was soon to end and she had absolutely no intention of working on her packing with Brett and Germaine in attendance.


	24. Passing Time

Two people have recently asked where we are in the initial prescribed timeline so I've decided to make it explicit. Kagome's plans require three years of med school (of which she has already finished the third year). After that she has a year of practical observation in a hospital, following a Senior doctor(s) to learn in a real environment. (this is similar to a curriculum followed by a friend who just graduated from this part of her education). Following that, is time spent as a resident refining her specialty, or in Kagome's case, defining and applying it to hanyou patients. Kagome's going to establish her own clinic, research past hanyou patients what was previously attempted with negative results before and figuring out why each method failed, before she can develop working theories to test. So, three to four more years from this point in the story. Lots can happen in that time.

Lots of story to come. I'm 17 chapters ahead of you and that's only 2 years time away.

Calendar: September.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Passing Time**

Sesshoumaru stood at the back of the amphitheater, observing Kikyou's class stoically. As his mate had said, time healed all things, and if it didn't, it certainly assisted in creating some emotional distance.

He still didn't accept the loss of his grandsire, still couldn't understand the actions of his alpha, but he was growing to an acceptable realization that he just plain didn't care anymore. His father was far away and no longer able to affect him. Not now.

The Maxwells had been incredibly helpful in the arrangements necessary for their continued stay in Australia. Kikyou and Inuyasha managed to sign up for the correct number of classes in time to maintain the need for a student visa, but Sesshoumaru had not. The classes he needed were already full, unless he took art.

As tempting as it had been, he just couldn't bring himself to risk it. Nonny hadn't been making things up when she'd suggested Sesshoumaru would be raped in broad daylight for evincing signs of artistic sensitivity. Propositions were still a common occurrence and stalkers had become a regular hazard he could not avoid. Sesshoumaru didn't necessarily fear his unwanted admirers as he hadn't feared the ones back home. Mostly because his various would-be lovers were determined not to share the event of bedding him with others. Not that they wouldn't brag about it afterward to as many journalists and talk show hosts as would listen and pay for it. Artistic sensitivity opened the door to collaborative stalkers. The type that would convince themselves to band together in order to preserve his look in artistic history whether by forcing him to pose nude for sketches or drugging and kidnapping for more nefarious purposes. It wasn't that artists were more determined or more demented, more that they were more creative and more open to various possibilities.

Even if he signed up to draw nude models and acted as if the attraction was only the naked female scheduled to be present, he would face problems. Nobody would label Sesshoumaru a chauvinist pig, an asshole or anything derogatory enough to save him from the inevitable conclusion that he was a horndog and definitely not getting enough sexual stimulation at home. It would be a free-for-all. Gang rape was the least of his problems in that event.

So he wasn't in the country as a student. Despite the enlightenment of these people and their general acceptance of youkai and their special needs, there hadn't been a way to obtain a visa as Inuyasha's alpha. Such would require legal documentation from Taishou Hiroyuki naming Sesshoumaru as being the dominant of a sub-pack that contained his preferred son. It would never happen. Inuyasha could declare Sesshoumaru his alpha, but that would leave both of them as permanently severed from their father's pack.

The separation was inevitably going to happen some time down the road, but neither of them were ready for it to happen now. There was no way for them to support themselves as a pack at present, not if they wanted to eat and live and learn. Better to wait until Inuyasha had graduated and Kikyou had her degree. His mate was taken care of on the far distant shores of some other country.

It was yet another way that she was superior to him. She was capable of achieving all she wanted on her own. Granted she was doing so through scholarship programs, but there was little doubt that she worked hard to earn and keep them.

He was one step closer to being self-sufficient now. He was in Australia on a work Visa Nonny and Maxwell-sensei had helped him apply for. His job was mostly helping his art teacher acquire his supplies and deliver his finished pieces, but it was sufficient to fulfill the requirements. The pay was more lessons and moderate access to all those same materials for his own assignments. Some of the more expensive materials were reserved for commissioned pieces, Maxwell's special projects, the ones already destined for pride of place in some museum or business, parks or city blocks. Some of the larger pieces required special treatment of the materials.

Sesshoumaru did that. Maxwell-sensei rather liked the effect his youkai toxins had on the metal surfaces. It was nice to be earning money at something he enjoyed doing that wasn't a sop to his father's power and influence. For the first time in his life, he was living off the merits of his own character.

Not entirely of course. The Taishou pack still sent checks in the mail to pay for rent and tuition, and Sesshoumaru still got a monthly stipend. But it felt better to be earning something of his own.

He even had a few commissions to work on personally rather than just assisting Maxwell-sensei.

Right now though, he was escorting Kikyou in her evening class. Normally it was Inuyasha's task given his instinct to protect his claim against all others. Most nights the hanyou would find some way to entertain himself as he waited for his chosen female to finish her class, turn in any homework, confer with her professor before they both would return to their shared flat. One night a week, however, the boy's class schedule did not allow for him to have the time free. In the absence of Inuyasha, the job had been transferred to Sesshoumaru.

Their original apartment had been let to another tenant before they had received the alpha's extension. Their landlord had no other properties available for Sesshoumaru's little sub-pack to lease. In fact, the owner had seemed rather eager to wash her hands of them entirely. All other accommodations near to the university were taken or outrageously overpriced and exceedingly small. Too small for their needs.

The Maxwells had again saved them from remaining homeless under their alpha's neglect. Nonny knew some people in one of the suburbs of Brisbane, people that owned properties designed to house youkai students. Most of their tenants were native born, coming from greater distances than were conducive to living at home and commuting from there.

Nonny knew several such owners from the days in the far distant past when she had been a teacher of law and many of her students had needed shelter for the terms. Her specialty was rare and her reputation unquestioned leaving her in high demand. Many students had come from the far reaches of the country and beyond to learn under her. A few had become interns which had required their housing information come to her attention.

She had arranged for some of them to find housing herself as a number of the better youkai oriented places were incredibly selective. Sesshoumaru could not fault them for it. Youkai could be as unruly in their college age behavior as humans and Sesshoumaru himself had certainly garnered something of a reputation for such before marking his mate. It was probably part of their difficulty in finding new housing, though it likely had more to do with some troublesome stalkers loitering outside their last residence. There had been some property damage and no small amount of littering in the owner's prize hedges.

According to Nonoka, word circulates quickly among the apartment community. Though he wasn't to blame, it was a nuisance that seemingly came hand in hand with housing Sesshoumaru. There was nothing he could do about it, though living farther from the university and failing to attend classes himself would certainly help to keep his new address secret from the mob a bit longer than last time. Even so, the people Nonny had called were initially as reluctant to take them in. If it were just Sesshoumaru and there was no reason to live near the school, he would live in a tent through every season out on the Maxwell's property. Humid summer, biting winter and cyclone storms didn't bother him in the least. There was no doubt he could arrange for permission to do so, though Nonny would likely insist he reside in their subterranean home with them.

But they were a pack and Inuyasha and Kikyou both were registered for classes. Sesshoumaru would never feel comfortable imposing that much on his art teacher, even if Nonny were to argue it wasn't an imposition. So they needed to stay in Brisbane and they needed a flat for all of them. And Nonny persevered.

Their new landlord, Jirra, was indigenous to Australia and the Brisbane area. A wallaby youkai was certainly something he'd never thought to encounter, partly because they mainly stayed to the reservation lands and partly because they were naturally nocturnal. Most of the subspecies lived further south and in more heavily wooded areas though their wild, animal cousins had taken to foraging in urban and suburban areas out of necessity.

The male was a tad overly friendly and seemingly treated Sesshoumaru and his pack as children needing to be looked after. Widower that he was, he'd never been blessed with joeys of his own, or so Nonoka had informed him. It was part of the reason he took in students. Apparently when he'd wed so many years past, his bride had wanted a big family and they'd bought a big house to prepare for it. It wasn't until many failed attempts later that it was discovered she was barren. Jirra had suggested taking in foster kids to help ease her sadness. Eventually they'd graduated to college students before she had passed on as a result of some major storm and terrible flooding during the seventies. The kids she'd been trying to rescue were saved, but she'd sustained too much damage in the attempt to hang on after.

At first Jirra's manner had offended Sesshoumaru. He was an adult and fully alpha enough to support those within his protection. They didn't need him checking up on them or asking after their food supplies. All he needed to know was that the rent was going to be paid on time.

His mate had managed to talk him into a better point of view. To her, Jirra was merely showing he cared as a friend of Nonny's. She said friends were the family you got to choose. Blood ties marked the relatives you had no real choice in, you loved them, cared about them because you were mostly obligated to. Friends were different. They chose to care because of the personal merits they saw in an individual or a particular association and the returned affection was for the same reasons. In some ways, such a network was healthier when the ties that bind fail to be effective. Such as a pack that was driving its youngest members out. At the very least, it lessened the likelihood that any of them would be kidnapped if someone always knew where they were. Sesshoumaru specifically as Inuyasha was of more import to more people.

Sesshoumaru was fairly certain his dearest father was purposely trying to push him out, even if he was the heir to the alpha position, even if the young male had never given a reason for his eviction. The fact was, Sesshoumaru had only been desired or needed while Izayoi was incapable of carrying to term and giving birth. The pack needed an heir for stability and Sesshoumaru was born to fill that roll. Inuyasha's birth had ultimately reduced Sesshoumaru from being necessary to being superfluous. Inuyasha was favored for no other reason than because he was borne of the right woman.

Not that he enjoyed it. Inuyasha being the golden son they'd waited for and being the only successful birth by Izayoi left him smothered by their over-protectiveness and unwise efforts to keep him in a protected bubble. Their coddling had left him ill-prepared for the world when he went to school. The world that had chosen prejudice against him for the mixed blood gifted by his parents.

The lights in the amphitheater came up, muting the distinction of sunlight from outside. The lecture portion of the class was now over, but this particular professor always allowed for discussion after to help solidify the lesson and clear up confusion should any student have questions. Sesshoumaru sighed and turned his blind gaze to the screen rolling out of view.

Their greater distance from the University left them wishing more than Kikyou had bothered to get the local driver's license. Not Sesshoumaru since he spent most of his time traveling from their suburban flat to the areas outside of town. His runs were a daily necessity and certainly more enjoyable now that the bus ride away from the university had been all but completely eliminated from his travel plans.

Inuyasha complained of it more because he found it difficult to reconcile his instincts to being driven around by his female and not the other way around. He was occasionally such a brat about it within Sesshoumaru's hearing that it was a wonder that Kikyou hadn't refused to take him anywhere with her as a result. Her patience wasn't unlimited.

Sesshoumaru didn't mind riding shotgun with the female as a driver. She got him to and fro safely enough and it was her class he was attending. She was the reason he had to go into the city so it only stood to reason that she be the one to get them there.

The class was beginning to collect their things and head his way at the back of the room. Sesshoumaru had learned quickly that sitting in a dark corner was not to his benefit and while hovering in the path to the door opened him up for unnecessary groping, it was better than being trapped without an escape route. He'd learned that the hard way. The more determined would-be girlfriends or lovers would box him in rather effectively given that there wasn't any real collaborative effort. Each would pet or stroke some part of his skin, hair or clothing whenever something came in reach and some part of him was always in reach stuck in a corner with nowhere to dodge but into some other molester's clutches.

Kikyou had been forced to break it up for him.

Sesshoumaru hated that fact. Oh he was fully capable of tearing the fingers and hands that touched him from their owners, but doing so was a quick ticket out of the country. Even if he acted in self-defense, he was on foreign soil and legal matters tended to get...complicated. A case in which all evidence beyond the injuries suffered by the first aggressor at his claws was mere hearsay, it was far too easy for a youkai to lose the self-defense plea. He was youkai, and while some of the many individuals accosting his person were also youkai, their intrusion into his private space wasn't particularly violent, just unwanted. But there were worse things.

Kikyou always stayed later than the rest to speak with the professor while she was here. She was being considerate of him given that anytime Inuyasha couldn't come with her, Sesshoumaru would and Inuyasha's schedule was blocked for the hours her professor was in the office for student assistance. Sesshoumaru tolerated it the best he could. The groping as her classmates passed by was something he could handle. It wasn't pleasant, but it wouldn't kill him. Most of the more forward individuals had learned to limit their advances to passing touches on his person, ones he could easily ignore and forget after a thorough scrubbing to remove the scent from his person.

It was Whetu-sensei's teaching assistant that was the real threat. The female refused to take a hint and had a lasting excuse to linger as long as the professor was in the room. Sesshoumaru had made a point never to learn her name so that he could never accidentally use it and make the situation worse. Because as uncomfortable as being cornered once a week without leave to evacuate the vicinity missing his charge was, Sesshoumaru was certainly aware it could always get worse.

"Back again, are you?" came the simpering voice that irritated his sensitive ears after everyone of Kikyou's classes, the ones he attended anyway. "You don't have to keep up with this silly pretense to see me. You could just ask me out." Somehow the woman had gotten the impression that Sesshoumaru was sweet on her, but too shy to ask her out. It was the explanation she had chosen to assume for his occasional appearance despite watching him arrive and then leave with Kikyou every week. He supposed he could blame Inuyasha for her easy dismissal of his obvious connection with another woman.

Sesshoumaru wasn't certain what Inuyasha said when he was the one escorting Kikyou to her evening class, but he'd heard enough of her complaints to know many declarations of the hanyou's claims were made in incredibly bombastic tones. The boy was ever rash and boisterous. If a male so much as sat too close to his future mate, Inuyasha generally exploded rather loudly.

"Perhaps you're too shy?" the daft female continued to talk to his blank expression. She reached out with a coy smile to pat his shoulder with an open hand and Sesshoumaru abruptly shrugged out of her reach. Her touch was somehow worse than the others. It seemed wrongly proprietary and no one was allowed such liberties outside of his mate. "Do you want me to ask you?" she chuckled and reached again.

Again he moved sharply to evade her grasp only to wind up hung up slightly on the row of chairs beside him. Her next effort proved successful as it followed quickly on the heels of the last and landed before he could remove himself from the obstacle in his way. A rumbling growl slipped out despite knowing it would only make things worse.

Sesshoumaru could never figure out how the fool bitch could possibly mistake a threatening growl for something encouraging. "Where should we go on this date I'm supposed to ask you on? What shall we do?" she gave him a knowing smirk clearly thinking of something that would turn his stomach.

"All right Sesshoumaru-san, I'm all done," Kikyou wedged her way in between the two rather forcefully for her usual Japanese demeanor. "We can go home now!"

"In a minute little girl, the big kids were talking about something," the TA drawled, her voice thick with condescension.

Kikyou narrowed her eyes at the elder girl, clearly perturbed by her tone. "It didn't look like you were discussing anything, Britney-san. It rather looked like you were molesting my escort against his will."

"Someone as naïve as you would certainly see it that way," Britney rebuked snidely.

"Ms. Hildebrandt," Professor Whetu interrupted the developing altercation sharply. "You are out of line."

"Dr. Whetu?" The TA questioned in surprise.

"You are not paid to be my assistant so that you can molest the unwilling males who audit my class nor harass my students when they attempt to defend them."

"He comes here to see me," Britney tried to defend.

"Sesshoumaru-san comes here to escort me," Kikyou corrected.

"Oh please, you've got that possessive hanyou to escort you around. You can't have both to yourself," Britney scoffed.

"I think you are in desperate need of remedial classes on youkai cultures," Dr. Whetu declared. "If you remembered half of what you should have learned from the required courses, you would know that inu are very protective of pack and future pack members. Mr. Taishou is here to protect his brother's claim in his absence. Ms. Yoshida informed me at the beginning of term that the elder Mr. Taishou would be attending her on behalf of her fiance once a week due to conflict in her fiance's schedule. She followed the proper protocols to avoid complications and disruptions. Mr. Taishou has behaved admirably given your continued disregard for his clear disgust for the overly free attentions of both her classmates and you. I cannot curb the touching proclivities of my students, but I can curb yours. It is disrespectful of you to approach him against his will and unprofessional of you given you are currently here in an official capacity. If you continue with this reprehensible behavior I will be informing the board and the director of student activities. We have certainly tasked Mr. Taishou's patience hard enough."

Britney's mouth dropped open in horrified shock, "But I need the semester as your teaching assistant to graduate!"

Dr. Whetu gave her assistant a very flat look, "One more incident and I will see you completely removed from my employ. Whether the university chooses to eject you entirely from the program is up to them. Am I clear?" The TA nodded glumly and excused herself from the room.

"Thank you, Whetu-sensei," Kikyou bowed gratefully and Sesshoumaru nodded his appreciation as well.

"You should take better care of your alpha," Dr. Whetu rebuked her. "He is only put in these situations because he does his duty to you and his brother. He abstains from acting on his displeasure to avoid causing you problems and embarrassment. It was your job to see the situation and to do something to resolve it beyond stepping in only after your needs were met. You should have brought the problem to my attention sooner. I only noticed because a number of other students sought to complain about the unfairness of it outside my office two days ago. Their anger was unfounded and foolish. Yours would not have been." Kikyou's mouth hung open in shock at the reprimand, her eyes round and wide. "Mr. Taishou, Ms. Yoshida," the professor clearly dismissed them before taking her leave.

"I am sorry Sesshoumaru," Kikyou murmured morosely. "I tried to take care of it on my own, but Dr. Whetu was right. I should have made an official complaint when Britney-san refused to back off."

"Hn," was all Sesshoumaru said as he turned in hopes of directing her to the car to take them home. Whetu-sensei wasn't wrong, but neither was she right to take Kikyou to task for the situation. It wasn't her fault and it was entirely possible Kikyou hadn't known she could take it to her sensei. It seemed she knew there was an official channel to have gone to, but that was a large step that had widespread consequences.

"I mean it Sesshoumaru," Kikyou continued even as they wandered to the parking lot. They eventually reached the old two door bug that Kikyou had picked out upon their arrival. She liked the little thing for its fuel efficiency and compact size. It made parking and driving a great deal easier when the streets were crowded. This late in the evening there wasn't much of a crowd in the lot, though once they left campus the traffic would pick up.

She let them in and Sesshoumaru folded himself up into the small interior of the car. It wasn't the most comfortable ride to be had, but with the seat pushed all the way back, it was tolerable. When Kikyou started up the engine the numbers on the radio lit up the time, telling him they had been held up later than usual and there was no way they would make it home in time for him to make the call to his mate.

The disappointment must have shown on his face, or maybe he whimpered, but Kikyou asked him what was wrong. Golden eyes blinked back his frustration before he pulled his phone from his pocket and showed her the pending alarm set on it.

"Oh Sesshoumaru," she breathed once understanding sank in. He only used that phone for one purpose. "I'm sorry. We won't make it home before then." His nod was sharp in acknowledgment before his gaze turned to the window. "Couldn't you maybe just call her in the car?"

"She knows you," Sesshoumaru declared.

"What?"

"She knows you," he repeated. "Which means you know her and could conceivably identify her from her voice on the phone. We maintain this separation because I do not know her name and she needs the freedom to pursue a worthy and noble goal. To have her identified would inevitably end this. I cannot risk it."

Kikyou blinked, "Well you didn't have to put the volume up loud or on speaker, which wouldn't matter much anyway since most people sound really odd on the phone. But I'll promise not to give away her identity if you do chose to call her. I know how much those talks mean to you." She was the one to watch him pull out of his funk after one phone call from that mysterious and distant woman.

"This Sesshoumaru will call, it is up to her if she will speak," he decided. Sometimes Sesshoumaru didn't need anything more than the connection, the knowledge that at the other end of the phone she was there breathing and alive. She picked up on the first ring and he immediately informed her of his location and his company and all promises made. He hoped she would risk talking with him, but he understood if she didn't. A minute later she dropped her interference with their bond to soothe him as if knowing he needed it.

"It's all right Sesshoumaru-san, Kikyou keeps her word," his mate responded and the sound seemed to echo within the small confines of the car's dome. "Besides," she grunted from some exertion on her end of the line, "she never really knew me that well. Though I would suggest she keep it from Inuyasha that you let her listen in. He might get jealous."

"But he was first to know about this Sesshoumaru's phone," the inu argued.

"Maybe, but nobody else in the pack has been allowed to hear me speak. That Kikyou has will seem like a form of bonding that isn't shared with your brother," the faraway female pointed out. "It would irritate him two-fold in that he isn't yet mated to Kikyou and you are not him and bonding with his female and the fact that you allowed her something you haven't allowed your brother."

Kikyou glanced at him tensely, "She's got a point."

"Hn," Sesshoumaru grumbled.

"Are you all right Sesshoumaru?" his mate asked in concern. Her open connection to the bond they shared had probably told her of his continued agitation.

"We had a slight situation after class this evening," Sesshoumaru rumbled uncomfortably.

"The TA again?" she asked.

"Hn," Sesshoumaru responded.

"It shouldn't be a problem again," Kikyou felt compelled to inform their telephonic companion. "Whetu-sensei took care of it. If Britney-san tries anything again, Whetu-sensei will have her dismissed from the position entirely and Britney-san won't graduate on time."

"Ah," came the sound of understanding. "Good for you then."

"We shall see mate," Sesshoumaru refused to celebrate until the changed behavior manifested in some way that he approved of. It wouldn't be the first time someone was willing to risk all just to attempt to bed him. Granted, such hadn't been the case as often since news of his engagement had been released to the press now that the greater incentive of marriage wasn't on the table. Besides which, the overly forward TA had only been warned off one set of behaviors. There were a number of others fully as likely to be uncomfortable to him.

But it wasn't wise to borrow tomorrow's problems for today, or so his mate had told him repeatedly. She'd told herself that too, on occasion. It was something to remember and remind themselves about whenever discussion of their future came up. Sometimes they needed it when dealing with things a little more immediate.


	25. Murphy's Law

Calendar: October.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Murphy's Law**

Kagome squealed as the boxes started to fall, their contents tumbling around her when she jumped at the shrill call of her cell. She wasn't expecting him to call so early. As she scrambled to start cleaning up the articles flung from the top box to the carpeted floor she connected the call. "Tsh! That's going to leave a mark," she noted absently as she found one of the brushes had flaked old paint onto the light colored weave covering the floor. Usually she was certain it wouldn't be a problem to vacuum up, but somehow the flecks of bright paint had managed to already be ground in.

"Are you hurt mate? Have you been injured? Who hurt you?" started the slightly panicked voice of a distant inu. "Where are you? This Sesshoumaru will call the necessary aid-"

"Sesshoumaru!" Kagome stopped him. "I got some paint on the carpet. I'm not hurt."

"This Sesshoumaru was unaware that you had such an artistic bent," he accepted the explanation and viable change of topic easily. Kagome had let up her interference in the bond so he could feel for himself that she was fine.

"I don't," she replied succinctly. "I was moving some boxes around when your call startled me into knocking over a stack of them. The paint supplies fell out of the top one."

"Boxes? I thought you had already unpacked after your move, mate," the inu expressed his confusion. Kagome only had three boxes and a few miscellaneous items that defied conventional packing methods. It took little time to pack up and just as small an increment of time to unpack.

"I was required to move again," Kagome answered blandly. "Circumstances led me and my advisers to agree that I needed to break my lease for safety reasons."

"Mate?" his voice was suddenly tight with worry. A lack of safety meant danger towards her in an inu's mind. While he wasn't wrong, Kagome was more upset by the perceived lack of respect which had accompanied the dangerous situation she'd been put in by her roommate. But Sesshoumaru didn't really know the circumstances.

"You know the issues I'd been having with my new roommate?" Kagome began reluctantly. Her problems with her second generation Mexican American roommate had started from the very first day. She'd thought they would be fine to get along for the year when her roommate's family had boisterously helped Kagome settle in. Mr. and Mrs. Hernandez were warm, engaging people, welcoming and tolerant of her clearly homosexual friends. Brett and Germaine had been treated well by all of the family present.

Most of the apartment had been furnished by her roommate's family, which hadn't really been an obvious sign of trouble. Brett's family had supplied all the furniture in her last apartment and it had never been an issue. The various pieces were sturdy and second hand, clearly showing her roommate's ethnic background in the fabrics and style. Kagome had rather liked it. Learning about new people and places, perspectives and cultures was interesting and something else for her to think about and do when her insomnia acted up.

They'd had a communal dinner for everyone to get acquainted before Brett and Germaine headed out to the hotel they'd booked for the evening and her Roommate's parents took off for the long drive home.

It was then that the first hint of difficulty came to light. Her roommate, who had been Mariana up to that point, sharply corrected Kagome to call her the more Americanized "Mary". After which point she started to give Kagome a hard time about her strange name, her gay friends, and her lacking contribution to the richness of their furnishings. The self-dubbed "Mary" was a bigoted, pretentious snob.

She was also the worst sort of party girl Kagome had ever had the misfortune to know. Every weekend, starting Thursday, found their apartment filled with the drunken masses that "Mary" insisted were merely friends. Four days of every week found their apartment wrecked by the effects of too many bodies in too small a space, but "Mary" always blamed Kagome when the landlord came around with complaints from the neighbors who weren't invited to the party.

Kagome had quickly learned not to leave anything of hers in the main areas of the apartment and most days she refused to touch anything that belonged to her roommate. She'd caught one of "Mary's" guests urinating in the kitchen sink once. Another time she witnessed a couple having sex on the couch in front of everybody with eyes. She had absolutely no desire to touch anything covered with miscellaneous body fluids in her own home, especially not those types of fluids. "I was having difficulty studying, even with the earplugs in because I kept dozing off," she continued to inform her inu audience about the straw that broke the camel's back.

Living with "Mary" often made it difficult to study, all the noise and the constant attempts to open her locked door disturbed her focus. Kagome made a point of staying out of the place as late as she could since once she had no other choice she was stuck trying to ignore the rambunctious crowd with their most obnoxious leader leading the din. Sometimes walking through the press of bodies was a hazard unto itself as many of her roommate's guest thought Kagome was attractive enough to warrant molestation. They were all drunk enough to think she'd want the uninvited attentions. At least they were until Kagome knocked every trespasser on their ass in front of the crowd.

"Mary" had attempted to argue with her over that tendency to protect herself believing Kagome should appreciate the attention despite her unwillingness to see reason and conform to American ways by adopting a normal name and dressing more enticingly. Sesshoumaru had been required to talk Kagome down from raging more vociferously at her roommate several times in the short weeks they'd been living together. He'd worried for her, but so far there were no legal grounds for her to break the contract she'd signed when moving in.

"I double checked that my door was locked, wedged my earplugs in a little deeper and turned out the light," that was her other problem. When Kagome occasionally needed to sleep, she had to resort to the dangerous measures of earplugs to achieve it. Fire alarms could only wake you if you could hear them. And a fire was incredibly likely given the booze and the number of scented candles her roommate liked to leave around. "I woke up to a hand groping me in a room that shouldn't have anybody else in it. I solidly elbowed this mystery person before shoving them the rest of the way off my bed. A very male voice protested the rough treatment and hard landing."

Sesshoumaru growled from his end of the phone. As an inu, it was unconscionable that she, his mate, could have been so close to being violated by another male. It didn't matter that she had successfully prevented it by her own strengths, he was the only male allowed that close. "How did he get in?"

"I asked that precise question," Kagome declared mildly. "I recognized him as one of the few regulars of "Mary's" parties. He, like you, viewed sex as the cure-all for a hangover as she well knew having participated in his little sex after drinking ritual on more than one occasion. However, that night, "Mary" had already picked her hangover remedy and he was at loose ends. His ever so accommodating friend decided that since I wasn't sleeping with anybody, I would be perfect for the problem, his problem. It didn't matter that my door was locked, clearly indicating my unwillingness to participate in anything that would involve company from outside my room. It didn't matter that I had already rejected his flirtatious attempts four different times quite violently. "Mary" used the spare key intended for emergency use only to let him in and kindly locked the door behind him."

"Mate!" she could almost feel his impotent rage at the situation she'd been subjected to through their bond, not that the mere sound of his tone wouldn't have sufficiently conveyed it.

"I was, of course, evicting him from my room throughout the interrogation, growing louder as time carried on. Partly because I was so very angry and partly because I knew he was particularly sensitive to it just then. "Mary" chose to chime in her view of things when my volume reached a decibel that penetrated the walls of her own room, waking her from a booze-induced, sex-sated sleep." Kagome couldn't believe any woman would be so blasé about setting another female up for that kind of assault. She also couldn't understand why Mr. and Mrs. Hernandez's Mariana couldn't accept that Kagome preferred a different way of life. Why even the alter ego "Mary" couldn't respect Kagome's determination to study while attending a med-school outside of her native country? Surely, if "Mary" was willing to bomb out of all her classes by partying over much, she could as easily accept that some people attended college to learn. But then, she supposed it wasn't so strange that a girl who couldn't respect the name gifted to her by her parents would have a hard time respecting some one who wasn't family.

"She told me in plain terms that I needed to just "give it up" and let the guy nail me. Maybe doing so would "fix me" of my dreary compulsion to obsessively study and act so antisocial. She refused to consider that I was only acting anti-social around her so-called friends. She had the gall to tell me that I needed to get over myself." Kagome sniffed in disdain. It still made her angry. "I demanded she turn over the spare key to my bedroom. She refused, stating the clause in my lease. So I called Miriam-sensei, who called Ramirez-sensei and Barley-san. Barley-san is Ramirez-sensei's lawyer friend. They arrived within thirty minutes to help me pack my stuff. Barley-san cited a number of clauses from the contract I signed as he had apparently been consulted on it before it was ever presented to me."

Kagome had thoroughly relished the sight of "Mary's" mouth hanging open as Barley-san laid out just why it would be against her own interest to attempt pursuing any legal action against Kagome for breaking the lease mid term. She had heavy backing that "Mary" should have known about from the start. Four professors brought in from Canada with her and six sponsors from the medical university all with phenomenal reputations in the medical and academic communities. Not to mention one of them was married to a high level politician in the city.

Kagome didn't like flaunting that information around, not that she tried to hide it either. It was more like it was an open secret. Miriam-sensei was her designated handler for everyday needs like personal necessities and such. Ramirez-sensei was one of the two doctors that escorted her on rounds of the local hospital they'd arranged for her to gain her practical skills at. The first year had her mostly observing with the other first year practical students, making rounds as a group under a supervisory physician. Most students only made rounds in one set of wards or another with the same group every time. Kagome had two groups, one for the human wards and one for the youkai.

She was required to have a separate escort in both groups beyond just the supervising practitioner. Kagome wasn't sure how it had been explained to the rest of the faculty, if it had been explained at all, but there had been reason enough for it. More than once Kagome's questions would have held up the group if not for her escort, and each of her attending professors insisted on getting her observations on both the patients and the diagnosis given for them.

When Kagome wasn't at the hospital observing and learning, she was rereading her text books and pouring back over her notes. Miriam-sensei, Ramirez-sensei and Carter-sensei generally assigned her further reading if she proved deficient in some subject or particular strain of disease and the associated remedies. Sometimes, if an unusual ailment turned up specific to one breed of youkai, Kagome would read further into things on her own.

She was determined to retain as much as possible and shear repetition in various situations would, if not ensure that, at least make it so she remembered where to look for the information when she needed it. Sometimes, once she learned a specific breed of youkai was on the rounds that she hadn't encountered professionally before, Kagome would hunt through the medical library for anything pertinent.

"So, the boxes you were moving..." Sesshoumaru trailed off, dragging her back into the present.

"Given that I broke my lease mid term due to extenuating circumstances and there was no previous anticipation of taking such action, I didn't have a new apartment lined up. My professors are wonderful people, but even they couldn't foresee my roommate setting me up for possible rape. AS such they too had no means of providing me with an immediate living situation of my own beyond booking me into a hotel for a prolonged period of time," Kagome was against it for a number of reasons. Partly because a hotel wouldn't necessarily guarantee her any kind of quiet study time nor were most conducive to any kind of diet that didn't include a large amount of take out, room service, and restaurant dining. It wasn't a very economical or healthy way to live as her handlers well knew. Plus it would likely interfere more with her ability to focus than the situation already was, something her original four advisers had always feared greatly. The loss of focus that would lead to a drop in motivation to continue on her chosen path. "None of my faithful four were in situations where they could offer me alternate housing until a more permanent solution can be arranged."

Kagome wasn't certain she would have taken any of them up on a spare room or even just a couch to crash on for one night. "Mary" had invoked a strong reluctance to trust her sleeping safety to anyone at the moment. She wanted a deadbolt between her and anyone with a spare key. "My six sponsors are a little better equipped, given their longer familiarity with the area, but most are difficult to get a hold of on short notice which only left Carter-sensei."

"The professor who makes you nervous?" Sesshoumaru's voice was tense. On one hand it was good that she had found shelter. On the other, Kagome had never really explained her nervousness around the older male.

"He and his late wife had a large house with a pool house that was long ago converted into a kind of guest apartment," Kagome added without addressing his concern. Mostly because she couldn't address it without explaining her inherent anxiety towards her professor. She couldn't do that without divulging some of her current secrets. Something that she was mildly insecure about. "They apparently turned to using it as her multi-purpose hobby hut for years before she died two years ago. The boxes contain some of the failed hobbies she took up and discarded between bouts of illness."

The former Mrs. Carter had been hanyou to Carter-sensei's youkai. She, Sylvia, had managed to reach her late teens despite the odds stacked against her in childhood. At that time her health plateaued for a bit on a high note. She went to school obtained a degree in art and mated. Her first miscarriage had weakened her badly and her health toppled off the flat peak. She would contract something, get through it and catch something else. For years. Her hobbies were ways for her to pass time while stuck in a chair by the window or trapped in bed during recovery only to be set aside when she again became so sick as to be unable to do anything but fight it off.

Kagome had been surprised when Carter-sensei's story was related to her. She hadn't known him while Sylvia was alive, but she would have thought the youkai wouldn't be up for the kind of project Kagome's education was going to be, so soon after his loss. She'd rather thought he would have been filled with anger at her for not starting sooner, for not accomplishing her task before Sylvia finally lost her battle for life. After she'd gotten over her surprise and the mild sympathy she felt over his loss, she'd started to notice certain looks from him.

It took a few days to analyze what precisely those looks meant as Kagome wasn't on the market and had stopped noticing such things. She likewise was more than used to people looking her over consideringly as if weighing her sincerity or ability to accomplish whatever they wanted her for. That look had been her companion since her scholarship interviews back home. Eventually, Kagome managed to figure it out.

Carter-sensei was youkai and had experienced a terrible loss due to the lacking medical knowledge specific to his mate's mixed heritage. Kagome was human trying to accomplish an impossibly large task. In his eyes, her life was too short to complete the work she had started. And he couldn't trust that anyone else would continue what she started since no one else had thought to attempt it before her.

In his view there could only be one way to fix this problem.

"You never told this Sesshoumaru why he bothers you so," the inu in Australia commented pointedly. Kagome supposed it couldn't be helped. He was male and her mate and she was stuck living in close proximity to another male, one that made her uneasy. He needed an explanation, and he deserved one too.

"I told you about Carter-sensei's mate, right?" she began mildly before shoving at a box full of old notebooks filled with hurried handwriting. "She was hanyou and ill for a long time before she succumbed to mortality?"

"Hn, you had mentioned that," he acknowledged encouragingly.

"Well, he doesn't want anybody else to ever suffer the way she did. Or the way he did when she lost her battle," it certainly made his speculative glances in her direction sound a great deal more noble than it was. "He believes that the effort to create a sufficient understanding of hanyou medicine will take a great deal of time, longer than I will likely live."

"Why?" Sesshoumaru demanded. "Are you ill? Damaged in some way?"

"Because I am human," she declared baldly. "My species would normally severely limit my longevity, Sesshoumaru."

"It is surprising," he conceded after several long minutes to process the information. It was certain that her power had been evident in his sense of their bond every time she let it through. Sesshoumaru had likely assumed she was some species of pure youkai. "Your connection to this Sesshoumaru through the mark has relieved you of this problem," continued after a full minute to further absorb the bomb she just dropped in conjunction with his knowledge of the power in her soul. It was a tidbit of information that he hadn't known and it certainly made her efforts to learn and theorize and formulate a great deal more important to him. It was important before, Inuyasha was blood and pack, but with Kagome being human it meant that their eventual children would also benefit from the work she was doing now.

"Sesshoumaru, nobody knows I'm marked as a youkai mate," Kagome explained patiently.

"He thinks to mate you?" Sesshoumaru almost exploded. This was a greater threat to his claim than had ever been thrust in his face before. That Kagome wasn't interested or the fact this male sought to claim her for only the noblest of reason didn't mean a thing. She was already claimed by him.

"Hence why he makes me nervous," Kagome cut in over the heavy growling rattling the speaker built into her phone. "There's always that pending, personal, possibly painful conversation hovering over every interaction we have anywhere. I know he doesn't want to really, which is kind of annoying and insulting, because mating is just as permanent whether there's affection there or not. It's also enraging that he would think to rob me of future happiness just because he doubts my lifetime would be sufficient to accomplish this task, but there's also the discomfort of knowing that, when the subject comes up, it'll still hurt him when I turn him down because rejection always hurts."

"Just tell him you are already claimed and the whole problem evaporates," the inu returned gruffly, unwilling to consider the emotional well-being of his rival _at all_. Kagome let it go. It was instinct for him. Youkai were not as evolved as some feminists would prefer, but Kagome was pleased that he was evolved enough to control his instincts so as not to always act on them. If all he did was growl and give her guff about other males, she could handle it. Granted, since their only contact was telephonic in nature, that was about all he _could_ do.

"I don't think it will matter until I've graduated from needing him to see me through rounds," academic policies would protect her at least that long. His growl didn't indicate that he was in any way appeased by the delay of the critical moment. She personally wasn't particularly soothed by it either, but it was what she had for now.

"These living arrangements," Sesshoumaru started pointedly, he wanted more information.

"Include a kitchenette, a deadbolt and a room full of stored boxes. I slept on the couch last night because it took the least amount of effort to uncover," She hoped the deadbolt comforted him as much as it did her. The fact Carter-sensei had handed the spare keys over without issue was also a huge relief, even if he was handing them off to Miriam-sensei. "I've been promised a microwave and a toaster oven to compliment my hotpot and electric kettle so I can do all my own cooking," Miriam had guaranteed Kagome would have them by Monday along with a robust amount of groceries to tide her over until Ramirez-sensei and Barley-san the lawyer found her a new apartment. "This arrangement is temporary, Sesshoumaru."

How temporary depended entirely on the availability of living space near the med school and attached hospital. Kagome didn't have a license or even a car. She biked everywhere she needed to go, which was the other reason hotels were unfeasible. Carter-sensei's home was closer to the things Kagome needed access to than the closest commercial hotel.

"Hn," Sesshoumaru intoned from the other side of the world. Kagome could tell he wasn't happy with the situation but couldn't really find a better solution to suggest. She liked that about him sometimes. Knowing when to accept a situation for the moment was something few people of her acquaintance had fully mastered. Complaining incessantly about things didn't change them and couldn't fix anything beyond annoying your biggest supporters. "You packed in a hurry," he commented to change the subject. "Are you certain you collected _every_thing?"

Kagome couldn't resist the grin that stretched her mouth. She knew exactly which _things_ he meant without the emphasis. It was the same question he'd asked when he found out she was in the car on the way over the border between Canada and their southern neighbor.

Then she'd thought maybe he was worried she'd discarded one of the gifts Sesshoumaru had painstakingly created for her. Kagome had wondered what he thought she would leave out. There wasn't a gift that wasn't precious to her in sentimental ways, not even that piece of lingerie she'd punished him with for months. She was wrong.

Sesshoumaru had apparently felt secure that she would never forget any of his gifts. Three years ago, Kagome might have called him out on his arrogance. Assuming such a thing was silly without better knowledge of her. But three years and countless calls had granted him greater understanding of what she cared about. It had also gained him admittance to the small number of individuals she cared a great deal about.

What he was worried about her failing to pack and move were things he hadn't been responsible for giving her. Sesshoumaru worried she'd left the adult toys behind. Kagome had to choke back on her chuckle. He worried she'd lost the tools he enjoyed her playing with during their occasional long distance trysts.

"Don't worry, we got everything but the latest batch of groceries I'd been forced to store in the fridge," Kagome answered. The real reason she hadn't left the toys behind this time was because she hadn't completely unpacked everything. There was no trust that her door would hold long enough to insure her privacy. She was unwilling to let "Mary" know she did anything of the sort or owned anything like the toys she'd received at that infamous sex toy birthday party.

"Hn, prove it," he demanded. "I want photographic evidence of you using them."

Kagome laughed.


	26. Stumbling Block

Sorry guys, here's another long AN. I've had a number of repeat questions asked in recent chapters so I thought I'd address them in the open to hopefully prevent further repetition of this confusion.

1\. "Why is Hiroyuki so cruel to Sesshoumaru?" Hiroyuki has never been intentionally or actually cruel. Before you start jumping up and down pointing at his refusal to allow Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha home for the funeral rites in honor of their grandfather's funeral, stop and think about it logically. Hiroyuki had no way of knowing either of his sons would react so badly to being barred from it. He doesn't know them as individuals with separate personalities and emotional reactions. Hiroyuki's decision was motivated by the very real threat of radiation poisoning, a concern raised by Izayoi on behalf of Inuyasha's health. Sesshoumaru himself doesn't consider it cruel either, because it's not. Cruelty isn't in a difficult or unpleasant situation, it isn't having to live through something you never wanted or denied you something you wanted. It isn't even being subjected to something painful. If a bee stings you and you almost die from a reaction to it, the bee isn't cruel. Cruel would be having to serve a three course meal to someone who fails to eat more than half while you are staving to death and aren't allowed to snitch even the scraps. Your ex-lover isn't cruel by breaking your heart. Cruel would be having to watch your child die in front of you and being told to go have another. Cruel is salt in an open wound and kicking someone when they're down.

2\. "Why does Hiroyuki hate Sesshoumaru?" This question floors me every time it's asked. There hasn't been a single instance in which the alpha did something to or toward Sesshoumaru that was hateful. Neglectful yes, hateful no. Hiroyuki doesn't hate Sesshoumaru. He is negligent which supersedes the possibility of hatred. Think about it, if you hate someone, you're constantly thinking of them and how much you wish they'd suffer or disappear or leave alone, etc. You go out of your way to make their life worse than it is. Negligence is the result of distraction and indifference. Hiroyuki doesn't think of Sesshoumaru (or even Inuyasha) except when he needs something from them and the same goes for most of the rest of the pack. He's a workaholic and most of his attention is taken up with building his financial empire. Sesshoumaru has never meant more to his father than as a visible heir that soothes the investors that the future is assured. The things Hiroyuki does that Sesshoumaru doesn't like aren't perpetuated under a working knowledge of Sesshoumaru's disdain or displeasure in the tasks. Sesshoumaru never protests verbally, he never balks. He comes when summoned, accomplishes what's asked of him without complaint.

3\. "Parenting issues" because there are a wealth of different questions that all hover over the same things. Hiroyuki, Izayoi and Sesshuomaru's dame are all what we plebs would call bad parents. Of the three, only Izayoi alternates neglect with stifling affection lavished on her miracle baby, Inuyasha. There are several parts to explaining portrayal here.

a) Royalty, Nobility, and wealthy classes tend to hand off responsibility for raising their kids for a number of (carefully vetted) caretakers from nursemaid to nanny, tutors and private schools. Inuyasha escaped the last one through pure luck and found himself his Sanctuary Families instead. They are absentee parents preoccupied with their own business. Hiroyuki is a workaholic. Izayoi plans social events, fights for causes in the most blasé gentle way, and attends charity balls. Sesshoumaru's mom exploits the financial boons won by selling the use of her ova and womb to produce the Taishou's heir. All of them are too busy in their individual worlds to concern themselves with the everyday minutiae of their respective children's lives.

b) It is unfortunately very common for many new parents to believe that the children they've created are in reality an extension of themselves. They don't realize that Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru are different personalities, motivated by and driven toward different goals than their parents. The natural end to that parental illusion would generally happen the first time child and parent come into serious conflict. The Taishou core never had that altercation because they don't spend enough time together for it to come up. Inuyasha's refusal to give up his girl doesn't truly fit the mold because the alpha understands desire for a female, possessiveness, and tenacity, recognizes them as traits he holds as well. Sesshoumaru's drunken promiscuity in response to a threat over being told who to mate also made sense to the alpha for some of the same reasons (though Hiroyuki was unaware that Sesshoumaru was intentionally looking to circumvent his alphas rule).

c.) The three parents do not associate the most positive feelings with Sesshoumaru. For his father, there is some resentment towards the pack for making him produce a pup with a female not his mate. For Izayoi, Sesshoumaru represented her failure to birth a child of her own, right from his birth. For Sesshoumaru's dame, the boy she birthed was just a meal ticket, her way up the social ladder and into the lap of luxury. She wasn't chosen for Maternal instinct but pedigree and pure blood.

4.) "Why hasn't Sesshoumaru just severed ties with the Taishou pack?" He's being fiscally responsible because when he leaves, he won't be going alone. Inuyasha will follow and Kikyou with him. Both are still working on their respective degrees, not currently able to contribute to their own support. Sesshoumaru cannot go into business for himself against Hiroyuki, he'd be rubbed out of the field before he got started _because_ Inuyasha went with him. The work he currently does is in exchange for lessons and materials. He doesn't have the connections, the skill, or the confidence in his art to live off that and even if he did, it would be too insecure an income for him to risk being unable to feed and house his pack. Kagome is likewise not in a position to fully support herself because right now, she's living off the awarded wealth of others. The situation he's in isn't unlivable as he's already lived with it the entirety of his life. There is an end on the horizon though it hasn't found a definite date. He has his mate, his brother, a sister-in-law, and a purpose to work toward having someday. Some of the most impossible hardships are easier to live under with a goal in mind.

There's more drama in this chapter. This time it's on Sesshoumaru's side of the world. Read on to get the BIG Scoop!

Calendar: October

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Stumbling Block**

Sesshoumaru's amber gaze was locked on the far end of the hallway Nonoka Maxwell had disappeared down twenty minutes before. Anxiety had plagued him since the moment he'd rushed out of the underground dwelling with his precious cargo and headed to the nearest hospital. He couldn't shake it and it caused his unblinking stare to remain unwavering on the double swing doors that barred him from going farther. He wasn't family and had no right to enter the intensive care portion of the ER.

He couldn't figure out how his day had ended up here.

Sesshoumaru had escaped the noise and bluster of his roommates getting ready for their classes on his way to his sensei's place. It was a regular work day and he'd expected to be unloading a delivery of Maxwell-sensei's newest materials. There were no finished pieces to be sent out and no venues waiting for them. There were no pieces in progress since the last had been finished last Monday and sent out the following Wednesday. The job was equal parts predictable and unpredictable sometimes.

Unloading days could find any combination of things coming off the truck. Maxwell-sensei had once built an entire sculpture out of nuts and bolts. He'd done another out of car doors. It was more common to receive sheet metals of various alloys and degrees of wear. Rust was a common finish that Maxwell had to work around. Nonoka was always joking with him that the rust should be left in place, that it should be the finish used for all metal art.

Maxwell usually grumped at her before yelling at Sesshoumaru to get back to work.

Unloading days were Sesshoumaru's favorite because there was a constant stream of work to be done once the truck arrived and it was always interesting to see what new materials were available to incorporate into his art after Max took his pick. Time flew by on unloading days and he always felt satisfyingly fatigued by the end of one.

Shipping days were mostly boring by comparison. Willem Maxwell did all the wrapping and packing himself. All Sesshoumaru did was load it onto the truck for him. Nonny insisted her Maxi couldn't handle all the heavy lifting he tried to say he could. The old human was strong from his work as only a metal artist would have to be, but he was aging. Nonny's youkai blood had maintained him as well as it could since their mating. But it had never granted him increased strength. Metal pieces were heavy by definition, weighed down by more than meaning. That didn't stop Max from trying to shift them, lift them, or move them by himself.

On those days Sesshoumaru tried to get out to their property even earlier to preempt such attempts. He had, as yet, not accepted any of Nonny's offers of overnight hospitality to accomplish this. He just woke exceedingly early and enjoyed the sunrise run from Brisbane under the strengthening sun. Sesshoumaru always managed to arrive just after Max finished his breakfast but before he could head into the studio. The wrapping and packing necessary would have been accomplished the night before and all that would remain on a shipping day was to load the sensei's art onto the truck when it arrived.

Unloading days were action packed the moment the truck arrived with the added challenge of anticipating every attempt by Sesshoumaru's employer to do more than his aged human body could take. It certainly kept the inu on his toes and the knowledge that he was protecting the elder male in some small way was pleasing.

But today's truck of materials had never showed.

Maxwell-sensei's art was stalled without it. Sesshoumaru had come to understand that the man needed the emotional outlet as it was his only outlet, his only real contact with the outside world. The old man may huff and puff and act disgusted with the greater open world he no longer took part in, but the isolation from it - self-imposed or otherwise – was difficult for him.

Nonny could be fine with just electronic interaction, but Max was more tactile, more organic. He needed to meet people in person, hear their reactions to his pieces on site. The man was old-fashioned in his need to shake hands in the passing of ownership of his art to new homes. The artist needed the first hand contact to reassure himself that his art was appreciated to his own satisfaction. Barring that, he loved to talk with the drivers that delivered his materials or picked up his finished pieces. More than that, he needed the materials to channel his art into.

The truck never came and Max grew agitated. He'd never been forced to remain idle so long since Sesshoumaru had known him. Inspiration, when it came, was difficult to hold onto or delay when it struck. It was interesting for the inu pupil to watch as Maxwell-sensei slowly turned an ethereal idea into a hard piece of sculpture that stood as a thing of beauty born from a seemingly tactless man who held none.

Agitation on the part of the old human was never pleasant for any of those around him. Max would bang his tools around noisily to seemingly no purpose. He would disappear into the "scraps room" to root around for some hopefully lost anything that could form the base of a new work, another noisy task that was harsh on sensitive youkai hearing. And the man would swear a blue streak as his foraging failed to uproot what he wanted.

Sesshoumaru was annoyed by the delay himself beyond the discomfort of Maxwell's petulant tantrums. One of the things he loved about Unloading days was the constant movement, the use of his body, the way time flew by as each batch of materials found a new home in the studio and adjacent storage room. He liked the feeling of accomplishment once the truck was empty and the lingering ache of use threaded through each of his limbs. He got plenty of exercise in all his forms, but only unloading days taxed his body over a prolonged period of time. His runs were nowhere near as time consuming, nor as challenging. And his mind was filled with the calculation of what each new piece of metal could be worked into, how best to mold it and shape it, what methods would best render the metals malleable enough to work with. His lessons with Max had taught him much and the assignments set challenged his knowledge and creativity sometimes.

The expectation of a full work day not being met left him nearly as unhappy with the delay as his teacher.

Sesshoumaru dealt with his restlessness by flipping through the pictures his mate had just sent on her last memory stick. He'd borrowed a tablet from Nonny and plugged it in. His next art piece was awaiting its inspiration from the selection she'd sent him.

The old tree that had been so prevalent in earlier sticks was missing from all the latest ones, reassuring him that she wasn't lying about having moved. In it's place were a row of hedges that stood outside a large house. They were in varying states of manicuring, indicating that the property had some expensive landscaping. Sesshoumaru suspected this shrubbery was near or close to the guesthouse she was still living in. There were pictures of public buildings, like the post office she kept her box in and the hospital she studied at. There were local schools and libraries, interesting people posing and candid shots, animals at play or scurrying around preparing for winter.

The breadth of her subject matter had grown with her confidence in the skill and his own ability. The woman he loved conveyed her support by asking Sesshoumaru what he was working on and praising the pieces he gifted her. He even had pictures of his art proudly displayed on her walls. There were pictures of her wearing the lab coat he'd prepared for her for their second anniversary someone else had obviously taken while she was making her observational rounds.

Sesshoumaru loved her long legs peaking out from under the ends of the white coat. The heels she wore weren't the type he was used to seeing on women, but their effect was spectacular by comparison. They made those legs look even longer and sent his brain off on a fantasy that included those long legs wearing nothing but the same low, stocky heels wrapped desperately around his waist.

It wasn't a new fantasy. It was one that plagued him from the moment he'd realized she'd left him in their mating bed. Though it was usually accompanied by more graphic visions to follow. Then discomfort in his groin and an uncomfortable fear of being noticed in such a state forced him to flick to more innocuous subject matter.

That was before he got to the last fifty pictures on the stick.

A few weeks back some of her peers managed to look beyond the special treatment she was receiving to actually get to know her. She'd been rather surprised and pleased by the development, mostly because she was down a roommate and all of her strongest bonds were with people thousands of miles away. Telephonic and electronic connection could only supply so much. This very small group had decided to include her, shuttle her around to see some of the local landmarks.

She'd been enjoying her new city beyond the growing experience gained while observing patients and identifying their various afflictions. He imagined it was a type of release or general relief to go from seeing how frail their living bodies were to seeing the many cultural triumphs the locals had achieved in their area. He knew she'd brought her camera along for every excursion since she never left home without it anymore.

Sesshoumaru's appetite and drive for his art left him devouring the inspiration she sent almost faster than she could supply it. As such, he'd asked for pictures from her trips. She'd sent him postcards featuring every spot his mate had visited. The inu had been severely disappointed. A professional image taken by someone paid for the purpose of impersonal documentation couldn't tell him what she'd taken note of. Her skill may not be equal to that of what was used for postcards and informational brochures, her equipment may not be capable of capturing the monuments in their entire majesty, but only her pictures could tell him what she'd found interesting. Only her pictures could tell him if it was raining when she visited the Bay Bridge. If smog clogged her view of the far end at the Golden Gate Bridge. A professional photo couldn't tell him if she'd sat in the front or back of the cable car she'd ridden. He didn't even know which she would choose if there was a choice to be had.

He wanted to know. Sesshoumaru wanted to know if she was drawn to the little details in architecture of the palace of fine arts or if the big picture meant more to her. He wanted to know if she would pay more attention to the history behind Alcatraz or simply find the foreboding building creepy for other reasons.

His mate's unprofessional pictures would tell him that. And Sesshoumaru very much wanted to know. Each was a nuance of her personality that was as yet undiscovered. Each was an image he could find inspiration with. Nonoka had decided that it was another way in which Sesshoumaru tried to communicate with his mate. Interpreting her pictures was his way of talking back to the ideas she conveyed unknowingly with the snap of a shutter.

The last fifty pictures were finally the ones he'd requested, and he was surprised to find a rather eclectic group of people escorting her. There were about five of them recurring in her shots, posing against the backdrop of whatever site was on the menu for the day. He knew them by personality only as she'd discussed each of them at some point in their conversations, but the images did not convey which each one was. They were not all human nor all youkai as he'd first expected. Sesshoumaru had thought it unlikely that people from both her groups would combine with the same idea, but that was apparently what happened.

While the group was almost always present in each of the pics in part or as a whole, the focus was more on whatever was behind them. And it was there that his amber eyes stayed the longest. The powerful bowing arch of the famous bridge suspended over the water. The unusual, larger than life sculptures in front of the art museum. The quaint focus on the brake lever on the cable car. Bright colors splashed across the digital screen masking the metals that made it all possible.

Sometimes her angles were odd like she had reached out, throwing off her center of balance in order to catch what she was looking for. Other times she zoomed in on something close to her, magnifying the shapes and how they fit together. There was such breadth to her choices that it made him wonder what she chose to keep to herself.

It was about the time when Sesshoumaru made it to the ferry ride over to Alcatraz that he realized something was wrong with his sensei. The scent of liquid iron threaded through the studio into the loading room drawing the inu away from his perusal of the grungy packed boat to the innards of the cluttered space that was the spare parts used for little more than adornment to an inner, stronger structure. He made it to Willem Maxwell's prone side first only by virtue of being in the same room. Nonny appeared a moment later, already starting to panic.

Max had fallen, his forearm caught and cut by the rough edge on one of his work benches. It bled profusely along the vein line though Sesshoumaru felt safe assuming the vein itself had not been harmed. Nonny ripped off the sleeve of the blouse she was wearing and tied it tight around her mate's wound. Sesshoumaru removed the belt he'd taken to wearing and tied it above the wound to cut down the amount that could go passed it. The tourniquet would hold and the bandage, while makeshift, should be sufficient if they hurried.

"Take him, Sesshoumaru," Nonoka had managed to choke out, it was clear she didn't want to hand over responsibility for her mate's transport to help. No youkai would, it went counter to the most basic instincts. "Head due east until you reach the hospital. You can't miss it." She called after him as he hurried to the nearest exit. The main hydraulic lift that was his usual access to the Maxwell home was on the opposite end of the underground compound. Instead he used the loading bay they'd been hovering near all day in wait for the truck that still hadn't arrived. "I'll be along with our primary physician as soon as possible."

Sesshoumaru didn't stop to ask why he was carrying his sensei to help instead of the cat. The run to the hospital would kill Nonny without proper protection, which would take time to don. Time the old man couldn't afford. Her death would be counter-productive to racing to the hospital in the first place. Her youkai blood was all that was keeping the old man alive as he was well past the human expiration date. It was a reality set to reach out and tear the heart of Sesshoumaru. His mate was human and this was a glimpse into some far distant personal future.

It still surprised him that his mate had turned out to be human for the power he felt through their bond when she allowed it was substantial. Humans with power born native to Japan were rare. By mere chance he'd found himself a single hidden miko. This was something he'd have to be very careful to avoid being discovered by his sire. The older inu would never let Sesshoumaru break from the pack if he knew his unknown mate was a human woman of power. The alpha's motivation would be the same as the reason his mate hadn't wanted to tell him about herself.

Youkai generally exploited miko mates, used them up until they were worn to a thread. It was rare to find a miko mate that wasn't a tired shell. In a world filled with increasingly toxic pollution to threaten youkai health, their power was put into indefinite service purifying it from their mates and all other family members based on the greater pack, clan, or tribal structures. Their mated status kept them from dying as a form of release. It didn't matter if the youkai that mated the miko in question did it out of affection or love and genuinely wanted to care for their mate, the alpha was alpha and made the decisions. It was a rare alpha who cared enough about the desires and health of their non blood kin. In the Taishou pack, given Izayoi wasn't more than a simple human, the miko were used until they were used up and allowed very little time to recharge if Hiroyuki saw a way to use them for the betterment of the pack. He cared nothing for the pain of what he considered lesser pack.

Sesshoumaru tried not to think about how _he_, despite being the heir, was undoubtedly considered lesser pack by his own father. There was little doubt of how his sire would feel about his mate as each new trait came to light. Being human, she would have been nothing but arm candy at most as she had initially pointed out. Intelligent and career-minded, she would have been exploited as an underpaid secretary or accountant. As miko, she would be restricted from traveling from the pack property for eternity. Her power would be tied up in building barriers to block out smog and radiation until she collapsed from exhaustion.

After she rested, his mate would be expected to do it all over again. He, Sesshoumaru, would never have a private moment with her for the intimacies he would always crave, for her time would belong to the pack and her free time would be marked by prolonged fatigue. In a very short time her health would begin to fade, her vibrancy, even her personality would dim as she wouldn't have the energy to perpetuate it anymore. Like the other miko housed by the pack.

Call him glutton for punishment, Sesshoumaru liked her the way she was. Even if she was keeping him at an exaggerated physical distance at present. He could use her closeness about now.

Knowledge gained through the long term study of medicine via his mate forced him to cradle his sensei in his arms across the miles that separated the Maxwell home from their nearest hospital and emergency room. Willem Maxwell was losing a lot of blood despite the makeshift bandage and leather tourniquet. Propping the wounded arm around his neck kept the limb elevated to slow the hemorrhaging. Still the crimson fluid was staining a considerable portion of his shirt, soaking to his skin and saturating his senses with the metallic scent. Sesshoumaru had never realized how much he cared until that moment.

Sesshoumaru could never remember running so fast. The moment he broke through the surface the inu tapped into reserves he'd never touched before. Worry for his burden drove him to speeds previously lacking. It wasn't a pace to set for a long run as it would exhaust him too quickly, rendering him unable to move on for some time after. Luckily his stamina held out long enough to slide through the automatic doors.

Too impatient to wait for the glass to part all the way, Sesshoumaru pressed through the narrowest crack needed to deliver his cargo to the first person to acknowledge the emergency. A gurney materialized in front of him and an official looking person appeared at his elbow coaxing him to release his burden. Two more people were suddenly swirling around the space around him carefully assessing the damage and replacing the makeshift first aid with better supplies. Words flew around him that he knew but couldn't seem to process. "Pulse", "suture", and "transfusion" cascaded past his ears in quick succession as the mobile bed was wheeled quickly beyond his sight and a restraining hand kept him from following.

Sesshoumaru was quickly flagged over to the front desk for the standard hospital interrogation. He could no longer remember precisely what answers he gave. The inu was numb and still covered in human blood. He was fairly certain he conveyed the appropriate information as he was shown to a waiting room before Nonny arrived in her modified clean suit.

The material was still the noisy plastic that typified hazmat suits were made of, but that was where the similarities ended. Hers was hot pink, full of pockets and looked as tailored as an expensive business suit. He supposed that if one had to wear such a thing into public, it was hardly silly to alter it to fit personal needs and vanities. The only thing – besides the color – that kept it from looking like a simple three piece suit, was the oxygen tank rolling beside her. The neko smiled bravely at him briefly before directing the youkai male beside her to the front desk. A handful of minutes later, Nonoka and her physician escort disappeared into that section that he wasn't allowed to enter.

Which left him to stare numbly after them, anxious and tense. Sesshoumaru couldn't move, couldn't relax as time passed him sluggishly by. Others came to wait in the room and then eventually left. He wondered if he had been forgotten or if there was yet anything to be reported about his art mentor and employer's current state. Had the bleeding been stopped, was he conscious, would he recover. Had Sesshoumaru made it in time?

"Sesshoumaru?" the call of his name, when it came, came from the wrong direction. A quick turn of head found golden eyes widening in surprise. "Are you all right?" Inuyasha and Kikyou were hurrying into the ER through the sliding doors. "Are you hurt?" Kikyou's voice was frantic with worry.

"Keh, the bastard's covered in blood, but it's not his," Inuyasha informed his future mate after taking an incredibly deep assessing breath. His tone was tight with relief though the hanyou didn't relax. "Are you okay?"

"What are you doing here?" Sesshoumaru's voice was quiet and small.

"Your mate called," Kikyou answered him as the two finally reached him. The small woman's eyes swept him over from head to toe, looking for anything untoward. "She said you were heading to the hospital nearest your employer's house and that you would need us. We didn't have the chance to ask for more."

"She didn't even tell us why you were going," Inuyasha growled gruffly and sneezed in effort to rid himself of the blood scent mixed with the astringents and antiseptics. There was also the strong scent of bleach permeating the whole collection of rooms. "It's a lucky thing the landlord knows these people."

"Jirra-san was kind enough to give us directions," Kikyou continued absently, reaching out to turn Sesshoumaru's head to the side.

"Lousy directions," Inuyasha grumbled and tugged on Sesshoumaru's stained sleeve. "He just gave us a compass point and said to follow my nose."

"We got here just fine," Kikyou turned on her lover and poked him in the side to make him shut up before turning sympathetically back to their alpha. "I brought you a change of clothing and the scent box your mate sent you. She said you would need something to cover the smell. I figured her scents would offer the most comfort." She lifted a dark blue duffel by her side. "Let me see if I can get us a place to clean you up." She turned and headed for the desk in front of the automatic doors.

"Keh," Inuyasha's eyes showed concern for the elder brother. Sesshoumaru's motions were robotic, his few words were reactionary and distracted. Whoever it was that had dragged his brother to the hospital was very important.

"Come on," Kikyou came back and grabbed Sesshoumaru's hand to drag him after her. The taller inu followed her lead docilely, "They apparently have a family bathroom that should be large enough for all of us."

"Kikyou!" Inuyasha trailed after his female and alpha trying to raise the same blustering and jealousy that was usually present whenever the two had reason to touch. "He's fully capable of cleaning himself up!" His female only glanced sternly back at him before rolling her eyes and pushing the door open before them. Capability wasn't in question. Willingness and motivation obviously were.

"Help me strip him down," Kikyou called her hanyou to action. It was a warning. If Inuyasha refused to touch Sesshoumaru, she would do it herself. The full inu was obviously in a form of shock and couldn't break out of it until some form of normalcy had been restored to him. The first step was to remove the blood. Inuyasha's lasting reluctance to undress his brother lead Kikyou to start slipping the buttons of his shirt free, trying to avoid getting any blood on her own clothing and hands.

It was a slow process. His clothes stuck to his skin with drying or dried blood. Some of it had to be re-wet before it could be pulled free. The skin then had to be thoroughly cleansed with a body soap his distant mate had included in her scent box to him. The minute the stopper came open the scent of it started to relax the inu. Kikyou's meticulous sponge bath was finished by Inuyasha scrubbing the smooth skin of the male's back and shoulders as Sesshoumaru was far too tall for Kikyou to comfortably reach. Once the skin was dubbed free of scarlet specks and thoroughly scented with the slightly feminine fragrance, Kikyou took out a more pungent body lotion of similar aroma and rubbed it in over his chest where the worst of the stains had been on his skin.

Inuyasha took over from there with fresh clothes while his fiance carefully sealed his previous garments in plastic to help block the scent from reaching him. Once done, Sesshoumaru was significantly more relaxed and starting to droop with exhaustion. "Lets go see if there's any word for you yet," Kikyou coaxed her males from the bathroom and back to the waiting room.

Nonny came out a few minutes latter looking relieved, if slightly exhausted. "He's going to be okay, Sesshoumaru. You saved his life," she breathed and pulled the tall youkai into a demanding hug. "He's going to be okay. He'll need to stay for a few days to recover and he'll need to return later to get the stitches out, but he's okay."

It took a few moments for the words to sink in. When the concept finally registered in his benumbed brain, his posture crumpled and he clutched the neko close in relief of his own.

"Keh," Inuyasha huffed at the scene. He only cringed slightly when Kikyou sharply called his name, glad she apparently hadn't heard what he said about the other woman's clothes.

Nonny took a step back to take in the two loitering behind the tall male. Their identities were unknown, but the hanyou's prevailing characteristics marked him as pack to Sesshoumaru making assumptions easy to confirm. "She called you," the neko commented, they were the pack staying in the country with the inu she'd come close to adopting. "I rather thought she might."

"How did she know?" Kikyou asked gently. It had been a huge surprise to receive a call from Sesshoumaru's mate like that.

"We were talking about a gift for Sesshoumaru. I figured she would eventually realize that I had forgotten about the phone after I dropped it to reach Maxi," the older female swallowed tightly. "She always seems to know what he needs, and he needed his pack close to him."

Kikyou nodded, "Inu take strength from pack in times of adversity. So Maxi-"

"Oh, silly me," the cat chuckled wearily. "I am Nonoka Maxwell and Maxi is Willem Maxwell, my mate."

"The ones who found us a place?" Inuyasha gasped loudly.

"We also employ Sesshoumaru out of our home," she nodded.

"We are most grateful for the kindnesses you have delivered unto us," Kikyou bowed respectfully. "It is also good to hear that your spouse will recover." Her words were sincere. "Visiting hours are long over now, we had better be heading home," she spoke to Inuyasha while subtly trying to pull the silent inu from the waiting room and towards the door. "Sesshoumaru will probably return early, but for now it's best we take him home."

"The bastard needs to sleep," Inuyasha declared bombastically as he pushed his brother ahead of him. "Big guy's done himself in."

Nonny nodded as she watched them out. "Take care of him," she mumbled as the glass doors slid shut behind them before returning to the bedside of her sleeping, pale mate. It had been a harrowing experience for all involved, but they had survived it. Truly a red letter day.


	27. First Triumph

So many things going on in just a short while. It's funny how fast time flies when you're trying to get back to normal. Then again, what is normal for Kagome and Sesshoumaru? I personally never aim for normal, it's a myth and a total waste of time. Better to ignore the weirdness and move on with life!

Calendar: Early October.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**First Triumph**

Kagome stared at the youkai headed straight for her. It wasn't unusual for the employees affiliated with the hospital to approach her or any other med student. Once rounds were finished their time was spent loitering around the nearest nurses station so some of the real employees liked to encourage their departure with threats of real work.

What was strange, was that Manny was the head nurse in the youkai pediatric ward and Kagome was currently standing in the human counterpart. It wasn't exactly a rule that the species couldn't cross over into the opposite wards, but it was usually discouraged. Kagome was the only student who was learning in both. She was also the only one present that knew he was the head nurse in the other wing of the hospital.

For a moment, she almost hoped the amazonian Tapir youkai wasn't looking for her. She was standing right in front of the nurse's station. Kagome prayed he was coming to talk to one of them. It was a long shot. Most of the nurses worked in their insular universes and left too exhausted to go looking for professional socialization in wards so very far apart. Kagome was fairly certain that shifts ended at different times in the two wards so the nurses here and there wouldn't even pass each other on the way in or out. That was if they took the time to run to an exit at the opposite end of the building before stepping outside.

"Kagome," the head nurse behind Kagome gasped. "Who's that hunk of male awesomeness headed your way?"

"You know he can hear you right?" Kagome turned back to Gloria with wry humor. Kagome had learned early on that some of her questions couldn't be answered by the doctors leading students around the wards. The docs couldn't tell her if patient health was unduly affected by constant visitors, surprise visitors, disappointing missed visits or no visits at all. The nurses could. It was information that would be useful someday when she would have her own patients to care for. "Most youkai have sensitive hearing."

"We call them demons here hun," Gloria Mercer responded unrepentant and the two other nurses behind her giggled. "And he doesn't seem to have been upset by the question."

"He's probably ignoring you," Marcy Reynolds murmured from beside Kagome. Marcy was one of Kagome's new friends. Next week their group was supposed to go to Sacramento. Lars Marrow, one of the youkai of their little sight-seeing group, was a native and eager to show their single Japanese compatriot all the things to see in his city. Marcy was from L.A. And her city was next month for an entire three day weekend since it was such a long drive. "Definitely here to corner Kagome."

"That doesn't mean she can't be our wing man and introduce him to everybody. Then he can't ignore us, that would be rude," Jane retorted smartly despite her fluttering eyelashes. Manny Anta was lean and well muscled, something that was apparent even through the double layered shirt and unisex scrubs that most hospital personnel wore while on duty. "I'm fairly certain there's enough of him to go around, unless the little princess is planning to keep him to herself." Jane Court didn't much care for Kagome. It probably had to do with all the attention the Japanese student was getting. Or rather, the male attention. Jane had a bad reputation among the nurses. Though Kagome had never been privy to any facts in that direction, the woman's personality was enough to shut down Kagome's willingness to dig deeper for the truth.

Kagome rolled her eyes discreetly. Jane could be snotty all she wanted, Kagome didn't care so long as it didn't get in the way of achieving her goals. "It is very unlikely that this is a social call," she informed them all around. "Introductions would be pointless. He won't care about any of you except maybe Gloria-san as the head nurse."

"She's got a point," Connor agreed with Kagome. He was the other nurse loitering behind Gloria in the nurses station. Connor usually joined them on their city trips and was very excited about the trip to Sacramento though he planned to skip the one to L.A. That big city had no draw because Lars wasn't going. "He looks very purposeful."

"Kagome," Manny called with a nod of professional acknowledgment as soon as he was within respectful range. "I was told to pass this on to you," he continued while handing over a folded piece of paper.

Kagome's eyebrows disappeared under her bangs as she took what was clearly a note of some kind from the older male. "Manny Anta, this is Gloria Mercer, the head nurse of this ward," she politely indicated the woman smirking behind the desk before stepping aside for privacy with her missive. Gloria adeptly finished the introductions and attempted to flirt with the transplanted tapir. She was unsuccessful as Manny was currently courting another nurse in oncology two floors down as Kagome already knew. But it wasn't her place to spread his business about.

The short sentences in block writing requested Kagome's presence in the youkai ward today. "I can't go Manny," Kagome interrupted the devolving conversation amidst the hovering nurses and one med student. Jane and Marcy were getting themselves into serious trouble with the head nurses of both wards. "Carter-sensei is out of town and LornaVaughn-sensei is holding that seminar until after visiting hours are over." She wasn't allowed in the youkai wards unless she was personally escorted by a youkai. It was as much for her safety as to prevent the patients and their families from taking offense.

Insulted youkai were as dangerous to a stray human as injured animals were. They tended to lash out without true thought. When youkai lashed out, human bones snapped like twigs. Powerful miko, secretly mated to an inu youkai or not, she was still human in her build. Her bones and muscle and ligaments were no match for youkai anger and fear driven instinct and retaliating in the miko way would definitely get her in more trouble. Self-defense is a tricky issue in a hospital.

"That's why I am here," Manny answered her concern. "I will escort you to the kit's room. You saved her life, you deserve to receive the thanks and accolades that go with it."

"I just asked a question," Kagome returned briefly, turning to grab her things. Whether she went with Manny or not, it was time to leave. "After they eliminated everything else, Kinley's disease was the best fit. The symptoms matched up, and despite how rare it is, it made more sense than any other option. The test for it is simple and her family line carries the genes."

"Maybe, but you were the only one to point that out," Manny was insistent.

"Kagome saved someone's life?" Gloria gasped and glanced over the med student with pride. "I always knew she was going to achieve big things. You can always tell."

"Tell what," Jane scoffed, "she's just like every other med student here. The only difference is all the unwarranted attention she's getting."

Everyone else standing around the nurses station turned to glare at her. "You always were the type to be judgmental without reason, Jane," Connor Kade growled. "What has Kagome ever done to you?"

Manny's glare seemed to unnerve the little nurse the most, "Do us all a favor and stay away from Kagome, she's got a hard enough road ahead of her without you making it harder out of jealousy and spite. She's taking the long way to the top of the hill by actually doing the work to get her there instead of using the lust of others to skip the steps required to climb it."

"Just what are you implying?" Jane demanded angrily.

"Just the same thing you were implying," Marcy answered drolly. "Not everyone sleeps their way through school."

"I never-"

"Then why are you so certain Kagome is?" Marcy returned sharply.

"Shall we take our leave Kagome?" Manny grabbed Kagome's bag from her hands and strode away to leave the others arguing amongst themselves and Kagome trailing after to demand the return of her things.

"Manny-san, I really don't think-" she began in strident tones, unwilling to be strong-armed into something against her will.

Immediately after the tapir had lured the secret miko from the children's ward he turned on her. "Kagome," Manny started brusquely. "The kit wants to thank you. Her family wants to thank you. It has to be today because she checks out tomorrow and you're still going to be in the human wards then."

"But-"

"The family had a bad scare. They nearly lost one of their own, their baby. They would have lost her if a young med student with a strange goal hadn't been present and asked a life-saving question," the tapir cut her off pointedly. "You saved her life by being at the right place at the right time with the right question."

"Then it was shear chance that she survived, in which case they should be thanking fate," Kagome rebuffed him. She was well aware that extreme gratitude was a hazard of doctoring and saving lives. But she wasn't a doctor yet and she didn't feel like starting that part early.

"You were the instrument of fate even under your own definition. You are the face of their good fortune," Manny insisted. "Give them this. It is not a bad thing to start establishing a reputation among the community while still a student. These are the people who will help you when time comes to get your own clinic off the ground."

"Why would I need my own clinic?" Kagome grumbled, "Established hospitals already have reputations and connections. A new clinic would practically need to be built from the ground up! It would require new licenses, instruments, personnel, equipment, medical permits, and a ton of other things I can't even think about right now."

"No established hospital is going to risk its reputation on untried medicine and a doctor with no reputation for success," Manny replied flatly. "Your sponsors got you in to learn, but even they know the limits of their sponsorship."

Kagome frowned as he turned again to drag her off to the other end of the building. It took everything she had to keep up so that she didn't arrive looking like a recalcitrant child being dragged along by a parent. Manny could really move when he had cause and his judgment of the capabilities of those around him was as good or greater than all the best tacticians in the world. He knew how fast to travel so that Kagome could keep up but not fight it or have the time to think of a way out of it.

"Now," Manny pulled her in a whip motion ahead of him to stop right in front of the kitsune's door, "you will go in there and accept their gratitude graciously. You will be the personable young woman I know you are. You will chat with whatever family is present."

"I am going to kick you. You will feel lots of pain," Kagome growled petulantly.

"Maybe, but you will still do this little girl," Manny announced smugly. "Your sponsors and teachers may be doing the bulk of the work for your future clinic in your place, but you were never going to get away with doing less than your share of it yourself."

He reached around her to swing the door open and shoved her inside. Kagome was immediately swamped in the grabbing arms and hands of two very relieved parents.

This was the real reason Kagome didn't want credit. Westerners were so prone to resorting to overzealous touching. The youkai variant of a grateful hug could crush human ribs before the gushing, relieved hugger realized the danger. Especially when the hugger was unaware they were hugging a human.

Kagome could always get their attention with her reiki, but despite growing a little more relaxed about guarding her secret, she couldn't quite break that last step. There was little doubt that partially purifying her grateful public would ruin her reputation and destroy her future a lot faster than ignoring their efforts to thank her. She was so going to hurt Manny for this...if she survived.

One hand desperately tapped at the arm easiest to reach as she gasped for air. "You might want to let the poor girl breath," the smug tapir finally called the foxes off. He was a lousy escort and protector. She was _absolutely_ going to report him after this.

"Oh, I'm sorry," the mother gasped pulling her mate back from the gasping human as Kagome rubbed at her sore and probably bruised ribs. At least she hoped they were just bruised, cracking was entirely possible and would put her out of commission for far longer than she wanted. Her entire torso throbbed in the welcomed release of pressure. She'd have to give it a few minutes to be able to tell if the pain was serious indication of damage or not. She hoped it wasn't, she'd have to tell Sesshoumaru and he'd want to investigate the damage for himself before persuading her to prove her continued good health in the same manner as the last time he worried about her that way. No way did she want to try for orgasm with throbbing ribs!

"We thought you were the med student who saved Pepper," Alma Cunningham, Pepper's mother apologized.

Manny chuckled as Kagome started to insult him under her breath in fast spoken Japanese before he addressed the female fox's confusion. "She is. May I introduce Kagome Higurashi, asker of life saving questions."

"I thought you said she was a med student," William Cunningham gruffly communicated his confusion as well.

"I am currently enrolled in both the youkai-erm-demon and human medical programs," Kagome answered mildly, assuming the most professional mien possible under the circumstances. "I am glad to see that Pepper-chan is doing better. I hear she will be allowed to go home tomorrow." She glanced at Pepper, the rambunctious kit sitting up in the bed bathed in sunlight streaming from the windows. The kit looked two hundred percent better, and that was just at a glance. When last Kagome had seen the gray fox youkai, she'd been unable to stay awake for more than mere moments at a time, they were feeding her through an IV and her salt and pepper hair had looked brittle from a lack of proper washings and bad health.

"I didn't even know that there were students enrolled in both programs," Mrs. Cunningham murmured as she backed up slowly, uneasy with this strange turn of events. Her wording was careful to avoid indication that Kagome's being human was the real concern rather than being allowed to enroll in both programs.

"I've certainly never heard of it before," Mr. Cunningham concurred with his mate.

"Heh, most schools won't allow a human to enroll in the demon program," an unknown young male called from the chair by the bed. The sly redhead flashed a mischievous look in Kagome's direction. "Something weird is going on here Uncle William."

"What is the meaning of this?" William Cunningham demanded of Kagome and Manny.

"The meaning of what exactly?"Kagome demanded right back indignantly. Gratitude and being hugged to death were one thing, being accused of underhanded dealings for saving someone's life was another entirely. Somebody's priorities were messed up!

"You asked to see the person responsible for your daughter's recovery," Manny stoutly answered the fox's question. "Kagome is that person. You didn't ask for the doctors who carried out the treatment, you didn't require the person be demon. I shouldn't think your daughter's life should be dependent upon breed." For all that she was angry with Manny at the moment, she had to give him points for sticking to her side, she was still going to report him though.

"What is a human doing in a youkai ward at all?" the obnoxious redhead demanded. Kagome decided she really didn't like him. He was making this situation worse by egging his uncle on over a false insult that hadn't been delivered.

"I am studying medicine," Kagome smartly declared. "I am a med student, that is my purpose for being here."

"But you're human," Pepper's mom protested.

"I didn't realize intelligence and the ability to practice medicine were limited to one species or another," Kagome growled annoyed. "I have only been observing. When I don't understand something I ask a question. I didn't understand why Kinley's disease wasn't considered given your family medical history and tests proved Pepper didn't have something else. In future I'll make sure to keep my questions to myself so as not to offend the patients I save by being human. Better to let them die than force them to be saved by the wrong species!"

"Kagome," Manny called warningly.

"No, Manny," Kagome cut him off. "I didn't want to come here. I didn't need or want the so-called gratitude. I knew this was a bad idea, even without that brat over there making it worse. I'm glad Pepper-chan's better. I'm glad she's going home, but I've had enough of being alternately suffocated with thanks and accused of giving insult by being the wrong species to save someone."

"Thanks a lot, Shippou," Pepper growled at the now identified brat in the chair next to her bed. "I wanted to thank her. She saved my life, but you just had to make this about species!"

"Well I'm sorry," Shippou scowled, unrepentant "but I think we should know why a human was even allowed into your sick room."

"Manny get out of my way," Kagome glared at the Tapir nurse blocking the door. She was now certain the pain in her ribs wasn't going away. She wanted out of the room that was suddenly too hot for her species and her health. X-rays were needed and she wasn't going to delay them to suffer any further at the hands of kitsune curiosity.

"Those answers needed to be had right now?" Pepper jumped out of her bed and smacked her cousin sternly before racing past her overprotective parents to hug the human trying to escape her room. Calls of her name ended in stunned silence as Kagome tensed up at the strange contact. The young vixen's grip wasn't punishing, but the contact made her tender skin flare up uncomfortably. "I don't care why you were here. I don't care what other purpose you were fulfilling. I'm glad you came to see me. I'm glad you spoke up to save me. It doesn't matter that you aren't demon! You saved my life and I'm grateful to be alive!"

Kagome relaxed slowly under the grasping claws and careful grip of the young vixen she had saved from death and her own body. Gently her soft human hands rose to pat soothingly against the shaking ones of the kit at her back. "You should get back in bed, kiddo," she murmured softly. "You may be getting better, but you were very sick until just recently." Clumsily working her way around to face the young female clutching her so closely, Kagome returned the hug before urging the kit back the way she had come. She walked her every step of the way to the bed and helped her climb back up into it before arranging the sheets and blankets back into place. All while ignoring the staring fools and incompetent escort. "You, I'll accept thanks from," she smiled down at the girl. "You've got your priorities straight." Kagome reached up to brush some short gray hair back from Pepper's face as the young kit managed a weak grin at her.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Shippou demanded bluntly.

"It means, that before trying to stir up trouble, before asking for explanations," Kagome answered him blandly. "Pepper-chan is glad to be alive and aware that species, politics, and motives mean nothing beyond that. She is alive and healing where she wasn't before. Why should it matter if the eyes and brain that saw the solution belonged to a med student or a doctor? Why should it matter if that person was human or demon? She's alive and getting better."

"But why are you even here?" Shippou stubbornly remained stuck on that point. Clearly the kitsune needed a staunch lesson in the downfall of prejudice and foolishness, never mind tact.

"I am here because Pepper-chan invited me and Manny-san wouldn't let me refuse the invitation," Kagome responded. "I wasn't aware that answering an invitation or saving a life were punishable offenses in this country."

"They aren't," Manny insisted. "The kit needs better manners."

"Shippou's a brat like you said," Pepper scolded her older cousin who huffed angrily. "I wanted to thank Kagome. Mom and Dad wanted to thank her before he distracted them with their own confusion," Pepper added. "They weren't here when the question was raised, they didn't see her then."

"I am not a brat, the fact remains that there isn't a single school on the planet that would allow a human to enroll in a demon medical school program. There must be reasons for that!" The red fox insisted. "Who ever heard of a human doctoring a demon."

"Then it's just as well I don't plan to treat demons," Kagome growled at the obnoxious red head.

"Then what are you doing here!" Shippou demanded stubbornly.

"Learning," Kagome's answer was succinct and pointed. "Any further questions will have to be taken up with my teachers as I am quite tired of being forced to defend my actions, my study, and my person. I instigated none of it and I don't deserve it. Take care, Pepper-chan. I hope you continue to get better. The rest of you, I could live very well if I never had to see any of you again until you learn better manners," her glare was especially ferocious when it landed on Shipou. "Remove yourself from the door Manny, I am leaving."

Kagome carefully swept from the room with majestic dignity, allowing the door to shut completely behind her before turning back to the human wards.

"The exit is that way, little girl," Manny trailed after her. "I planned to give you a ride and buy dinner in celebration."

"The emergency room is this way, leaf-eater," Kagome returned drily. "I need x-rays to see just how lousy an escort and protector you are."

"What?"

"There's definitely some bone damage to my ribs, I'll need some good pain killers and notification sent to my professors that my escort failed to protect me from skeletal damage. I will be ordered on bed rest for at least two days and limited activity after that," Kagome uttered blandly to cover for the simmering anger and frustration. For all that Carter-sensei planned – needlessly - to sacrifice himself in offer of mating to her, he would have insured she came to no harm in his company. He kept himself bodily between her and every youkai not in her peer group or on staff. He would not have shoved her first into a room containing youkai for any reason. Once the doors were closed on a room, the sound-proofing was sufficient to prevent him from assessing a situation inside of it from the outside. "I think a visit with Rosa-san in Oncology is in order."

"There's no way you've managed to contract and diagnose cancer in one visit," Manny scoffed.

"No, but I think she would like to know just how lacking your abilities as a protector are," Kagome replied sweetly. "I'm pretty sure you let the Cunningham's crack my ribs, after which you allowed three foxes to verbally attack me for being human. Considering Rosa-san is human and you're in the process of courting her, I think this is very pertinent information for her to have." Not to mention the fit Sesshoumaru was going to have when he heard about her day. Still, it was nice to have saved a life, to know that what she was learning could and would pay off for someone some day.

That was what she was after. Granted, Pepper wasn't a hanyou, but every doctor had to start somewhere. All things considered, she'd won her first battle against sickness and death. A triumph worth noting, she smiled secretly, maybe even celebrating in a quietly gushing dialogue with her mate on the phone tonight. Despite the damage she'd taken today he would be just as pleased as she was with this proof of her progress.


	28. The Family Disease

Welcome to another chapter of Paper Cranes! A little more drama for Kagome, you didn't think the injury would be it I hope! We get a peek at some of her new friends and their little outings and things don't go so well. Such is life on crack! Just kidding sometimes life just seems to have it out for you and you can't even laugh about it until it's all over.

Calendar: October again.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**The Family Disease**

Kagome was exhausted and more than ready to head back to her little guest house apartment. The trip to Sacramento was supposed to last another day to get in all the sites and sights of the city to be seen. She just hadn't slept very well last night. Marcia wasn't exactly the most restful person to be around. Normally it didn't bother the secret miko, but her injury helped to tire her more easily and sleep was needed to heal.

Lars' family had been in the area longer than there had been a Sacramento. It was hardly surprising, as bats were everywhere. The family had inter-mated with incoming foreigners a number of time over the years, but the breed most closely resembled the native one that was here first. Well, one of them, there were several species of bat youkai native to the area as Kagome had been obliged to learn over the last small span of time.

The kitsune had definitely cracked her ribs, x-rays showed damage to three on the left and two on her right side. She'd been admitted for two days before being sent home with instructions to limit her activities which had included living alone apparently. Kagome had been forced to move-in briefly with Marcy who had a strange obsession with bats that had surprisingly existed long before her obsession with Lars Marrow. Actually, it was entirely likely that Marcy's thing for Lars had everything to do with his species and less to do with the inherent wealth found in most well-established youkai families.

In fact, Kagome had learned a lot more about Marcy than she'd ever wanted to. Including the reality that, if not for the safety and hygiene requirements of the medical profession, the rather sarcastic and slightly caustic woman would be sporting black nail-polish in true goth fashion. She certainly had stores of every shade of black nail lacquer that had possibly ever been made in her apartment. It was all over her rather modest flat so that a small bottle of the stuff was always within reach. And there was tons of dark red lipstick. It was the type of shade designed to make her skin look paler than it already was while enticing male exploration (or so Kagome assumed).

The one good thing about Marcy's thing for bats, was that she didn't romanticize them. She had scads of books on every species of bat imaginable, their native habitats and natural behaviors. The youkai versions had even explained quite a bit about Lars that Kagome hadn't fully understood. Like the fact that he was attending med school after having finished his doctorate in psychology ten years ago. Bats liked to pass time before mating in learning institutions.

Institutions of higher education were considered marriage markets in sociological terms. Lars was on the make. If he found someone worthy he was going to take them back to his family for approval.

Learning that had made Kagome nervous with the thought of this trip hanging over her immediate future. The presence of Marcy, Connor and Emily – a transgendered nurse from oncology – made her hope that there was no reason to worry that any of them were being considered seriously for the position. Even so, she'd almost bailed out of the trip entirely. She'd finally been allowed to move back into her little guest house quarters alone and the interim had not been nearly long enough to make Kagome eager to spend any more time sharing space with Marcy.

Connor had been probably her best relief and comfort. He'd been the one who didn't explode dramatically when the news made the rounds about as quickly as it found her. He'd simply attended her in the hospital like any other patient, despite being too old for his ward, and helped keep her more emotive friends at bay. He was also the man holding her pills. It was hard to hold a grudge against someone who supplied her painkillers. Granted, Kagome had to make it to the hospital while he was on duty to get them, but she was finding she needed that motivation. It was mostly her idea to require a third party dispense her pills. She wasn't terribly certain of her pain tolerance and didn't want to risk over-dosing because she was a wuss. Besides self-medicating was a slippery slope for doctors.

Gloria had taken to driving Kagome everywhere as her bike had been dubbed too strenuous for her current injury. She'd also started supplying Kagome with breakfasts and dinner which Kagome had to sit through while Gloria spent the time badmouthing Manny and trying to devise great and terrible punishments for him.

Kagome hadn't cared to listen. Manny had been dealt with to her satisfaction. He was in hot water with a number of the docs and his lady love had lambasted him quite thoroughly. The Tapir had certainly had a lousy couple of weeks that Kagome felt he totally deserved. She was going to spend more than the next month healing from the damage done that day. A couple weeks of punishment was fine with her. If it went much beyond that and she was feeling up to the energy and pain it would cost her, she'd step in and end it for him. Right now she didn't want to think about it.

Energy was a limited commodity at present. Kagome was finding sleep claimed her most nights since the incident. Healing apparently required a great deal from her.

Which was why she was so exhausted now. Marcy had wanted to stay up late last night talking about Lars and his family's large ancient house. Truly it was a magnificent piece of architecture with old style wood carvings and colorful murals decorating every spare inch of space. The bannisters on the stairs had a different carving at the top and bottom of _every_ post supporting the railing. All were bats of course and each was different. If there was a space that wasn't claimed by warm wood carved into an artistic rendition of the flying rodent, there were various idealized insects flitting here and there in the finer details of some mural, tiled detail, or glass mosaic. Truly the Marrow family was all about pride in their species and that of their various non-youkai cousins or the wildly diverse choices of prey.

Lars and his parents could and would eat human food, but Kagome was pretty sure that they would prefer an insect buffet to the fine dinner of pork cutlets and baby vegetables they'd served last night. She was hoping they would serve to their guests' tastes for breakfast too, because she'd been too hungry to wait in her shared room for Connor to drop by with her meds.

The other reason Kagome hadn't gotten much sleep last night was because every time she'd almost grasped the illusive lands of Morpheus, Marcy would make another attempt to sneak out of their room - in search of Lars no doubt. It had been damned annoying until the twit finally gave up about 3am. By then of course the night was mostly shot. Her pain meds were wearing off, and their room was very shortly filled with bright sunlight. How Marcy could sleep through it bewildered Kagome something green and envious, but it did not help her dismiss the reality that she was up for the day.

And despite the nausea swirling around her uneasy stomach, she was absolutely starving. Kagome had been eating considerably more since her injury. She was fully aware that it was a direct response of her body's needs. Kagome had picked up supplements of vitamin D and calcium to support the healing of her injured bones. They absorbed better with food. Usually she took them at the same time she did her painkillers, but Connor was apparently not up yet and her stomach simply couldn't be bothered to wait any longer.

Following her very limited human nose and opening random doors she was certain weren't bedrooms along the first floor finally found her what she needed. She'd hoped for the kitchen, but she'd found the designated breakfast room, which was not the same room they had dined in the night before. There was a buffet set up with fruit and breads, warm food was carefully maintained at the safer temperatures for their human company. The smell increased her nausea, but Kagome had to eat something. Milk and orange juice sat in carafes in separate champagne buckets filled with ice offering a thoughtful variety common for breakfast, but she would have preferred plain water.

Preferences aside, Kagome could make do. She'd been doing it for years because these westerners didn't eat a lot of rice and right now, she wished hard for some okayu or even plain onigiri. Instead she took some plain toasted bread and grabbed a handful of red grapes from the bowl of assorted fruit. She was debating whether milk or orange juice would be better for her heaving stomach, neither entirely appealed, when it came to her attention that she was not entirely alone in the large room.

"Ah, good morning, miss," came the cultured voice from the small table in the corner. It was the only area that wasn't splashed liberally with bright sunshine and even still Lars' parents wore shaded glasses against the light. Anyone else, she would think they were hung over, but she knew better.

Youkai bats were not strictly nocturnal, as natural bats weren't. There were some species of animal that could be seen about well after sunrise and well before sunset. Most still preferred the shadows though. Their youkai counterparts were the same, though the youkai actually could see in all lights. Most were severely near-sighted and the older demon bats were sensitive to light.

"Come sit with us child," Marigold called to Kagome and, not wanting to be rude, the hidden miko sore about the chest and middle went to join them nervously. "We desire to get to know our future daughter and to finalize a betrothal."

"You have proven worthy, respecting our house enough to resist attempting to seduce our son under our noses," Erik continued, disregarding Kagome flabbergasted and appalled expression. He pulled out an official stack of papers as he spoke. "You are clearly intelligent given your course work, and despite our hopes for another youkai to capture his interests, you are deserving of our pup."

"I don't want him," Kagome replied succinctly. She couldn't believe that her qualifications amounted to not trying to sneak into Lars' room in the middle of the night and her unvalidated (by them) intelligence. A single glance at the first page that now faced her let her know she was looking at a document of official betrothal. "I didn't come here looking to start a relationship with Lars-san!"

"Nonsense," Erik chuckled pulling out a pen. "All females desire our son. He is very virile, intelligent and wealthy."

"He is handsome, dutiful, and much sought after," Marigold continued in amusement more than secure that no woman on the planet could resist her perfect son.

"_He _was never sought after by me," Kagome returned pointedly starting to pray that somebody would walk in and save her from this insanity. Unfortunately the one to walk in was not helpful.

"Ah, already working out the legal ramifications of our betrothal?" He greeted the trio pleasantly and Kagome wanted to scream. "I knew Kagome would be accepted," Lars added with a smile in her direction. "Sign it and we can begin fulfilling the steps of required courting."

"Well this Kagome doesn't want the honor," she growled low and angry as she got up to attempt escape, backing away from the small table and its infuriating contents without laying a finger on the supplied pen.

"Don't be silly. You devised such a magnificently original plot to come to me," like his parents, he refused to accept that a female could _not_ want him. "Developing hanyou medicine was a clear indication you desired to provide me with healthy pups."

"I don't want to supply you with anything but a swift farewell. I'm developing strong desire to have nothing to do with you ever again!" Kagome raised her voice, valiantly ignoring the flair of plain as she breathed too deep for her damaged ribs. "How dare you reduce my work to a simple ploy to find a male I will forever deem unworthy of me!"

Thankfully, Emily walked in on the conversation then and stared at the bastard incredulously having heard something of Kagome's echoing strident tones. "I knew you were vain, Lars but I hadn't realized you were a full on narcissist."

Lars sputtered in surprise. "Kagome developed her goals as a teenager in a foreign country. Surely you don't think your very reclusive family is so famous as to be known in a country as far away as hers? She had no reason to pursue you before she knew you existed and has shown no evidence of pursuing you since she became apprised of it," the woman under construction told the arrogant bat point blank. "I happen to have it on good authority that Kagome is already in a committed monogamous relationship, one she started before leaving Japan."

"Thank you Emily-san," Kagome silently begged for Connor's arrival with her painkillers. Yelling required bigger breaths than could be comfortable with such recently broken ribs. She had never been so tempted to let loose her reiki on pig-headed youkai before. She never would have thought Lars would put her in this situation when she was so incapable of fully defending herself. Hell, she couldn't even leave the room once the door was shut because pulling the heavy door open was beyond her. "Is Connor-san awake yet?" Emily and Connor had been roomed together because despite Emily's gender identity youkai were insensitive to the transgender issue. Emily smelled like Emil still therefore, in the company of youkai, Emil she would be treated. It was part of the reason Emily had cut all her ties with her youkai family back in the deep south. Apparently certain areas of the United States were less tolerant than others.

"Connor?" Erik questioned in disbelief. "You call for a male who is not even interested in females. Sign the contract."

"I will not sign your stupid contract," Kagome declared stoutly. Connor wasn't her lover in any case. Why would anyone assume otherwise?

"Connor is so interested in women," Emily countered. "He happens to be Bi, but that's not why she was asking after her good friend." More information than Kagome ever wanted about her "good friend". She had to assume she wasn't Connor's type since he'd never bothered to flirt with her.

"He is not "Bi"," Lars refuted. "I have never seen him pursue anything but males."

"You have never seen him pursue anything but you," Kagome countered, unsure of Emily's information, but certain of Lars'. The bat seldom saw anything that didn't involve him directly. He hadn't even noticed that Kagome was in pain, that everyone was helping her deal with cracked ribs in some way or another.

"Well, he certainly made the attempt at Lars last night," Marigold sighed regally, "but Lars would never go for someone else when you were to be his prize." The female probably thought she was comforting Kagome by assuring her that Lars would be faithful despite outside pursuit. Kagome was not comforted. She didn't want another male to be monogamous to her, especially one who was so stuck on himself. Sesshoumaru was more than enough, sometimes he was too much.

"I'm sure whoever gets stuck with his vainglorious ass will be happy to hear it. I. Don't. Want. Lars." Kagome ground out, trying to reign in her temper and keep from yelling again before Connor appeared with her pills. "I don't want to be part of your insane family!"

"Nonsense, dear," Marigold blew the little female off.

"Connor!" Kagome screamed pain lancing around her middle. A moment later her phone began to ring from her pocket. Sesshoumaru knew she was in very serious pain and he was calling to find out why. Since she hadn't been able to sooth his instincts in the traditional way, she'd offered to leave their bond open instead. As such, he felt what she felt.

"That would be her committed lover calling to check up on her," Emily declared triumphantly as Kagome reached to answer it and allay his fears.

"You will no longer have such lovers now that you are Lars' betrothed," Lars' Mother declared outraged on her son's behalf. The bat reached out and stole Kagome's phone. Thankfully the bat didn't crush the contraption but letting it ring increased the chances that Sesshoumaru would panic enough to break promises.

"What's all the hullabaloo?" Marcy wandered in bleary-eyed and yawning. "Surely it's too early for such theatrics." Kagome tried to bolt out of the heavy door before it closed, but somehow Lars and his father managed to block her escape route. Her ribs were killing her, she was starving and she was fairly certain that if she did eat anything it would come right back up now. "Kagome, you don't look so good."

"Any female who was trying to lie about not wanting Lars would look ill," the bat's mother insisted.

"She doesn't want your golden boy," Emily scoffed. "She needs her pain pills."

"You need me to go get Connor?" Marcy asked the shaky, pale female who had been her roommate.

"Just get me out of here," Kagome gasped, beginning to worry that she might wind up hyperventilating before this whole thing was over. "I'm going to have to cut the weekend short and go home."

"I wondered if this would be too much excitement for you right now," Marcy nodded before turning to help Kagome open the door only to find Erik Marrow holding the door shut. "What gives? Kagome is unwell and needs to go home. Let us out!"

"She will not be leaving until that contract is signed," the older male declared firmly.

"What bloody contract is more important than Kagome's health?" Marcy demanded.

"Our Betrothal contract," Lars answered easily. The apparent reluctance on Kagome's part to become engaged to him had failed to rouse any concern.

"Connor!" Kagome screamed, more than desperate for her painkillers now and hoping that someone pushing on the outside while Marcy and Emily pulled from the inside would overcome the stopping power of Erik Marrow against it.

"Just sign the contract little girl," the bat hissed at her. Connor's shoulder pounded into the old wood door from the outside, forcing the door to open an inch before it quickly swept closed again. "Our decision is final."

Marcy stared up at the old bat before deserting Emily and Connor at the door and wandering over to the small breakfast table the stack of papers sat on. "I will not be coerced into signing any betrothal contract to any male so disrespectful as to disregard my stand on the subject," Kagome returned angrily. "I have not made it this far by being pushed around by small-minded, wealthy asses who haven't the manners to host guests without summarily imprisoning them for disagreeing. I. _DO NOT_. WANT. LARS!"

"Welp, Contract is signed lets go!" Marcy jumped in. "Lars and I can consummate our engagement back in my apartment because we really need to get Kagome home and settled in. She's in quite a lot of pain and this situation was likely too much stress for her." Everyone gaped at the med student in surprise. The stunned reactions finally allowed Connor to force the door open as the bat holding it closed was sudden very lax in shock.

"I brought your pain pills, Kagome," Connor went directly to the shaking miko and lead her to a chair. "Emily can you get her some water and something plain to chase it down with. Kagome do you have those supplements you've been taking, we should definitely get those into you, then I think I'm going to insist you take a sedative for the drive home. You've strained your body harshly and don't seem to have gotten enough sleep."

"What do you mean the contract is signed?"

"What do you mean engagement between _you_ and Lars? You were not approved" Both parents appeared to come out of their shock to make demands at the same time. Connor raised both brows in surprise before turning back to help Kagome down her pills.

"I meant what I said. The contract is signed. I signed it, awful nice of you to leave all the paper work vague with that "the undersigned" stuff," Marcy answered with a negligent wave in their direction. "It was even more convenient that the witnesses and Lars already signed it." the newly engaged woman idly stole Kagome's phone back from her someday mother-in-law.

"Marcy?" Kagome asked gently unsure that her friend would be satisfied to win her crush that way. Marcy handed the phone gently back to Kagome, failing to answer the question, instead addressing the bats who'd sought to trap Kagome unwillingly into a relationship with them all.

"I don't have to care that it wasn't what you wanted since turnabout is fair play. You didn't care what Kagome wanted in your plans and schemes. So I don't care what you wanted. I got what I wanted using your own contracts against you," Marcy continued boldly. "Bat Boy is mine. And he better be as monogamous as the papers say because I'm the jealous type. No having sex without me, get it?"

The three bats couldn't argue the point so Marcy turned her attention to the hovering group around Kagome. "I'll go pack her things, Connor," she informed them before grabbing hold of 'bat boy' and dragging him out of the room with her.

Emily glanced up at Connor before looking back down at the shaking Kagome. "I'll grab your stuff and bring the car around shall I?"

"Here," Connor nodded and threw the keys up at Emily before returning his focus to feeding pieces of plain bread to his charge. "I'm sorry I wasn't up earlier. I had a bit of a late night."

"Trying to sneak into Lars' room I bet," Kagome offered him a wavering smile in amusement.

"How did you guess?"

"Marcy. And Lars' Mother," she answered quietly. Just then her phone began to ring from her again. "I need to answer this."

"Go ahead," Connor nodded amiably before helping her to her feet and holding a hand on her elbow. "I promise not to listen."

Kagome's smile was slightly more robust this time around before she accepted her call. Without giving a greeting or calling her mate's name she said, "I'm all right. We're cutting the trip short and I'll be home in a few hours. I'll explain then, but for now I'm all right," she assured the distant inu. "Connor was delayed getting me my painkillers and I got a little excited, pushed to yelling kind of excitement."

The voice rumbling on the other end of the call couldn't be heard by the human standing right beside her, but the bats appeared thoroughly spooked by the growled words that made it to Kagome. Words like "mate" and "who hurt" her. "I don't want to talk about it right now," the little female sighed wearily. Marigold and Erik Marrow glanced at each other in the realization they had tried to coerce a mated female into a betrothal with their son. They had willfully ignored her refusals, intended to force the issue which would have landed them in serious trouble with not only whichever youkai she was mated to, but the entire youkai community.

Attempting to steal another youkai's mate was a serious offense. Granted, the female had never claimed to be mated, but it had been brought to their attention that she was in a committed monogamous relationship and they dismissed it.

Perhaps it was a good thing their Lars was contractually bound to the other human female of the group. There was no proof beyond witnesses that the attempt had been made. Hearsay typically wasn't enough to get anybody in trouble. Thank all that was holy! Else they and their pup would be full of holes for sure.


	29. Homecoming

Because many people raised the question (including one guest reviewer I couldn't respond to), I'm going to address it here.

The question: Why didn't Kagome just reveal she was mated/have Sesshoumaru rescue her?

The answer: Why should she have? Why wasn't just saying "no" enough? Kagome is an intelligent woman and her intelligence was acknowledged by the bats before they tried to trap her into a betrothal with their son. Why didn't they respect that intelligence enough to accept she could choose not to want Lars, _because_ she didn't want Lars? Why did her refusal have to be substantiated with a relationship? And once the fact she was already involved in a "committed monogamous relationship" was revealed, why then did she have to prove it? These are more pertinent questions to my mind. Being rescued by Sesshoumaru would have proven bad all around. For starters, the information would leak to the press and his promises not to use the phone to search for her would not be effected if he found out who she was and where she was through tabloids and newspapers. Hiroyuki's business may not be global, but it is international and bad boy, playboys of rich men will always be universal, even if they haven't behaved that way in years. Face it, we love to watch the wealthy misbehave. That's why Paris Hilton is/was a celebrity. She has no personal virtue or talent that would have made her famous if she wasn't also a Hilton. And we love wealthy bad boys even more, else we wouldn't pay attention to European princes. Sesshoumaru was a bad boy who's turned over a new leaf since his engagement to some unknown, never publicly seen female. Wouldn't the reveal of who that woman is make newsstands everywhere?

I was also asked why Inuyasha hasn't identified Kagome to Sesshoumaru. This confusion I will address as I suspect it's been carried around by a number of other people who haven't been brave enough to ask. Kagome and Inuyasha are not close in this fic. She doesn't call him and talk to him. She gets her information about him from her mother. He is close to Kagome's family, mostly through Souta. Kagome is actually older than Inuyasha but younger than Sesshoumaru. (that leaves a 6 year gap). Sesshoumaru is not and has never been particularly chatty so he's never told either of his roommates about his mate's specific goals or locations. So Inuyasha and Kikyou could not identify her that way. Sesshoumaru does not and will not share the pictures she's sent as most of them are risqué. So again, Inuyasha could not identify her from them...not that he would know her well enough to identify without a face shot.

Lastly, (again because the guest could not be responded to directly) Kagome's interference with the bond has only been dropped for the interim of her injury. Once she is healed up, the noisy barrier will most likely be put back in place but, if you haven't notice, it's been coming down a little more often over the passage of time. Some things in life are just that subtle.

Anyways, there is some drama in this chapter, but it's mostly Inuyasha and Kikyou not communicating clearly with each other. So things are mostly more cheerful than they've been. Read on reader, read on!

Calendar: November.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Home Coming**

"Come on, Inuyasha! We're going to be late!" Kikyou hollered after her slow-moving hanyou. The Maxwells had finally gotten Max's stitches out, leaving Max a clean bill of health even if he was required to continue with physical therapy to rebuild the muscles that had weakened in the sling during the previous weeks. To celebrate the mated pair had invited Sesshoumaru's pack to join them for an early dinner. "Inuyasha! Will you move it?"

"Keh!" the hanyou offered in mindless response tugging a shirt over his head and somehow catching one ear in the process. "Damnit! I told you I hate these fancy shirts!"

"It isn't a fancy shirt! Just because it has three little buttons at the top doesn't make it fancy," Kikyou retorted. As she tried to pack up the appetizers she'd made to supplement Nonny's food offerings. As a neko mix, Kikyou was certain the elder female knew how much male youkai could consume, but it was still polite to bring something.

"It ain't a t-shirt," Inuyasha grumbled back as he finally freed his ear only to catch a button in his hair. Sesshoumaru tried not to snort in amusement. The boy had all the troubles of a toddler attempting to dress himself for the first time at an age that should preclude such problems.

"It's a polo shirt, which still doesn't make it fancy," Kikyou argued back. She'd carefully packed the edibles in a flat glass dish but worried over the safety of the dish in her tiny car packed around her and Inuyasha. Sesshoumaru handed her a box left over from a gift sent from his mate and indicated a stack of dish towels. The woman flashed him a quiet smile of thanks before carefully arranging dish and towels in the box.

Kikyou was nervous. Inuyasha was unruly. Sesshoumaru just wanted to get out to the Maxwell's already. His visits out to the underground residence of his sensei had been sporadic the last few weeks and he missed them and his daily run. Maxwell was unable to work beyond sketching out ideas as they occurred. His inspiration had been lacking under the influence of painkillers and periods of un-medicated pain. Only being able to use one hand also made it difficult to sketch in any case as the paper moved under the press of whichever marking implement he attempted to use. Frustration often shortened any brainstorming effort. The man was also in high dudgeon most days. Maxwell did not handle frustrated inspiration well.

Nonny had warned them all to keep an eye on Maxwell. He still wasn't supposed to be working his craft yet, he hadn't full use of his arm or the strength of former days. Sesshoumaru had fixed his wagon by padlocking all of the supplies and tools in the store room. Only the inu youkai had the key and he was a rock against all persuasion and resolutely refused to cough it up without a valid note from Willem Maxwell's doctor and a verbal okay from his neko mate.

The supplies had finally been delivered the day after the incident. Sesshoumaru had been required to run out to meet the delivery truck and finally unload and store everything. Nonny had called him from the hospital about it and he had very much appreciated the distraction though Kikyou had tried to keep him home in their shared flat. He supposed she worried about his reaction to being alone in the place his mentor had suffered his injury, but truly, the inu had needed the activity.

That was the day his mate had been injured by a set of thankful yet prejudiced kitsune parents.

Seshoumaru had understood that talking her into orgasm would have proven detrimental to her health as the muscle spasms and exaggerated tensing and subsequent release could dislodge or further damage her fragile bones. It still didn't alleviate the urges of his instinct or the continued desire to kill the ones responsible. He'd needed to exercise the tension from his blood.

It had helped to be able to monitor the level of her pain from day to day since then. She'd been careful to remind him what to expect while she was healing and how long healing her injuries would take. Feeling her health clearly through their unimpeded bond had been equal parts heady and worrying. He'd learned to identify increases of pain that were a direct result of her breathing exercises or the wearing off of her medications. He could tell when she was asleep and a contented sigh would wake her in pain. He knew when she forced herself to eat against inclination due to the spikes of pain at the start of her day. And he knew when the spikes were an indication that she was trapped in a situation she wasn't physically able to handle.

Such as the situation that arose last weekend on that trip to Sacramento.

Like her, Sesshoumaru had thought a group trip would protect her from any assumptions about romantic aspirations on a youkai heir. As long as the male didn't pick one person out of the group to fixate his attention on, no misunderstanding should have arisen. Sesshoumaru had known before calling that something had gone wrong. He had not appreciated being told to wait for an explanation, but he hadn't been angry about it.

His mate was always honest with him about her situation. If she couldn't talk right then, she really couldn't. His upset had been thoroughly mollified over the wait when he felt her drop off to sleep. Sesshoumaru had felt her restlessness throughout the hours when she normally slept. He knew she'd been sleeping more since her volatile meeting with the foxes at the hospital. Her body was exhausted with the effort to heal the damage done to her at their hands.

The sweet, secret miko refused to tell him any names, knowing full well that Sesshoumaru would hunt them down no matter how much time lapsed between her injury and their reunion. Someday he would be in the same country as those narrow-minded, ungrateful wretches. It would be easier to hunt them down if he had a name.

She was a kind, upstanding woman, his mate. Protecting even the ignorant, prejudiced fools who hurt her. Though she had been more than willing to expose the names of the bats.

Sesshoumaru smirked. He imagined the only reason she'd coughed up those cretins was because she was rather pleased with how her friend had meted out punishment. Instead of getting the female they wanted for the pup, they got one they had dismissed out of hand. And they couldn't get out of it. Their own legal document had seen to that. Despite Sesshoumaru's desire to handle them personally, he could not think of a more divine punishment that would last for quite so long. The family of bats would never remove the plucky and sarcastic Marcy Reynolds from their midst. Bats may not mate for life like some breeds, but official matings amongst the old families required a betrothal or subsequent mating last until at least one scion came of the union.

Humans rarely let go of connection with their own children entirely. The connection would never be severed so long as the human or any of her family lived. The flying rodents may well view the connection as a curse ere long but they're the ones who cast it on themselves. Instant karma was occasionally gratifying to see...or hear about second hand. It was inevitable that his mate would lose her friend with the passing of time, Marcy would always remember that the family and her "bat boy" had chosen another before her. That other would always be held suspect around Lars, even if the female never gave reason for it. The break would happen.

Right now, his lovely resilient mate was taking a nap. He actually loved it best when she was unconscious because he could reach across the distance and wrap his youki around her rather thickly. It wasn't impossible for him to do it while she was conscious, but it would distract her and likely upset her for the distraction. She was having a tough time focusing around the pain and the hovering of her peers and compatriots. In all likelihood, she was feeling smothered enough without him compounding things. Sesshoumaru was pretty sure just having their bond active without impediment tugged at her sometimes too. Sensations went both ways, and while hers would always be more immediate for her, she would still feel his too. He'd certainly been distracted by her in the last weeks since her injury.

So he saved the increased youki blanketing for the times when it couldn't do more than effect her dreams a little. His mate knew he was doing it, Sesshoumaru believed in full-disclosure. She'd even thanked him for his thoughtfulness in limiting his efforts as much as he did. His youki was speeding her healing along and as far as the fragile miko was concerned, the less time spent barred from the youkai wards, the happier she'd be. Him too, he supposed. The more time she was restricted from that part of her learning regimen, the longer it would take her to complete it.

Sesshoumaru could only be thankful it was for such a short duration. Not that she didn't still have years to go after completing this part of her education.

His mate had sent two bottles of California wine, one white and one red for this little party. Despite her discomfort, difficulty focusing on her studies, and frustration with the present situation, she showed her support for his own tribulations. Max and Nonny were important to him. Their troubles worried him and she did what she could from an ocean away to help him work through it.

The day those bottles arrived, he realized something important.

He loved her. Quite thoroughly.

Sesshoumaru hadn't known what it was to love until he'd held proof that she thought about him even when her world was rocking out of alignment and physical pain threaded every breath. He'd never known a person who cared about others so much. She'd impressed him with her intelligence, soothed him with her understanding, and opened up his world in so many ways that couldn't be measured. She gave him art, challenged him to empathy, and frustrated him with her kindness. She'd taught him that protection and support could be things less than physical and more than empty words.

Sesshoumaru supposed it was little surprising that he loved the contrary woman voluntarily. His mate hadn't made him do it. She'd never set out to win his affections therefore she'd won them by default through her care of his pack and himself despite her distance.

Perhaps she didn't love him like Sesshoumaru did her. He'd decided he could live with that for now. She'd sparked the first love of his life that wasn't familial and it wasn't necessary for her to reciprocate it right now. It would be nice, but he didn't think she had the necessary energy or emotion available to feel so deeply yet. He could live with that. In a lot of ways, it was comforting that her heart was on hold for the interim. He'd continue to court her from afar just to keep him fresh in her mind and other takers out in the cold, naturally. Just because she wasn't in love now and likely didn't have the wherewithal to actually fall, didn't mean that some interloper wouldn't try to move in while he was lazily content with the status quo. Too many human relationships ended in separation for him to risk it given his mate's species.

In the meantime, the effervescent feeling of a new experience kept his sketch book full of inspiration. Such that being unable to work with his more engaging medium was a greater hardship than Max made it out to be. Sesshoumaru was made of stern stuff and the locks on the sculpting materials would stay in place until his teacher could safely work with them, which also meant that the inu student was blocked from using them too. On one hand he was trying to respect his sensei's feelings of sacrifice and frustration by not rubbing it in doing his own projects. On the other, well Sesshoumaru knew he lost track of the world while working his craft and couldn't risk the old man sneaking materials out of storage while the inu was enthralled by his own art.

His mate had suggested he find other mediums to work with while his main metal teacher was out of commission. She suggested wood or marble, something harder than clay that would require utilization of his inherent strength along with Sesshoumaru's creativity. More proof that she cared and knew him fairly well.

Once Inuyasha's fiance had fussed over things to her content, Sesshoumaru gingerly carried everything down to the car. Carefully stowing the bottles and Kikyou's offerings in the miniscule backseat of her bug, Sesshoumaru listened as Kikyou tried to leash the wrecking ball that was her hanyou dressing in the morning. Once he had everything situated, mostly behind the driver's side since Inuyasha's seat would be pushed all the way back and possibly set to recline as well, Sesshoumaru shut and locked the door before wandering back into the flat to hand Kikyou back her keys.

Sesshoumaru smiled a private smile as he took off without Inuyasha and Kikyou. The other two would have to drive out to the Maxwell's hydraulic home entrance. Inuyasha may have the stamina to make the run, but his fiance rightfully refused to show up to any kind of celebration with wild hair and disheveled clothing. Which would be inevitable should Kikyou allow her hanyou to carry her across country the way he wanted.

Sesshoumaru had only remained within the city limits long enough to help Kikyou load the car before leaving. Inuyasha would be a while as the boy never seemed to leave for anything on time. They would most definitely be late, but Sesshoumaru wouldn't be and he'd make their excuses upon arrival. He wondered if even Kikyou had taken in to account that both would be required to go through a thorough cleansing once they appeared. Maxwell-sensei may be getting better after his injury, but Nonny was still allergic to city pollution.

Sesshoumaru had informed his pack mates about her special situation to combat Inuyasha's incessant curiosity over the neko's unusual outfit at the hospital. But that had been weeks ago and while Kikyou's memory was normally sufficient on such things she'd been distracted of late.

Inuyasha hadn't noticed her increased anxiety, but Sesshoumaru had. The hanyou was as unobservant as usual and while he went about his business under the misconception that all was well, Kikyou was worrying herself into a restless exhaustion. Sesshoumaru suspected the woman feared an unplanned pregnancy. His inu nose was well aware that her menses hadn't started three days ago when her calendar indicated it should have. He could as easily tell her that she had no reason to worry. About pregnancy at least. She wasn't carrying, he could tell. Inuyasha could have told her that as well, his nose was sensitive enough if brought close enough to the source. That is, if he noticed she was nervous and asked her about it in the first place. He probably already knew she wasn't carrying his pup given how much time the two spent in close quarters, but the hanyou likely hadn't thought to tell her. Inuyasha had no idea that a scent that hadn't changed was the source and the answer to the uncertainty Kikyou had yet to clearly convey to him.

Inuyasha simply wasn't equipped to pick up subtle communication. Kikyou had to know that already given their long relationship. If she didn't already know or had forgotten, she would certainly learn different.

Sesshoumaru wouldn't ease her fears in this instance. It wasn't his place. To do so would embarrass her and enrage Inuyasha. Just because an inu nose could detect personal information like that didn't mean people wanted it made so emphatically clear. He was hoping that some time on the drive out or the drive back, Kikyou and Inuyasha would break down and actually talk about it. Her tension made Sesshoumaru edgy, waiting for the moment Inuyasha exploded in response. That is, if the half-inu ever realized something was wrong.

The flat wasn't big enough to house their dysfunction sometimes.

Sesshoumaru shook his silver head as the changing building came into view. Kikyou's uncertainty laced the air with the smell of her cold sweat and strong soap as she cleaned absolutely everything she could get her hands on, including the glass in the picture frames strewn about the apartment. Most housekeepers were satisfied with merely dusting the things on the wall. The hanyou's girl polished the wood frames and sent the glass panels through the dishwasher. It had almost ended up a dangerous situation.

Some of the glass broke in the wash and if Sesshoumaru hadn't been there to prevent the anxious woman from opening the machine to remove the pieces, the apartment would have been perfumed with the scent of her blood. It wouldn't have been all that strong, and wouldn't have bothered him that much, but Inuyasha would have been unbearable. The hanyou came positively unhinged in the wake of a paper cut that Sesshoumaru could have prevented. No telling just what a more serious injury would entail.

Routine saw him changed and racing towards his destination in a few scant moments. The sun warmed him in a way reminiscent of his dreams of late.

It was the best thing to come out of his mate's injury as far as Sesshoumaru was concerned. The brief period in which their rest overlapped were some of the best dreams he'd ever had. They weren't even erotic in nature! Unless simply holding his mate fully clothed was erotic, because that's all he did. He held her in his arms. They didn't talk and they didn't move from the initial position they started in.

The dream would start with him holding her to his chest and they'd be sitting against one of Max's pewter bus sculptures gazing out on the open land of the secluded property. Or they'd be sitting under a tree that he recognized with the pewter buses in view but not dominating the land scape. Sometimes it would start with him standing behind her, with his arms wrapped about her shoulders staring out at the Golden Gate Bridge. The times of day varied, but the unmistakable sense that she was really there for him to touch was all he needed from the dreams. They held a warmth of companionship that pleased him more than the burn Sesshoumaru found in carnal exchanges. Although, if her injury were fully healed, he had absolutely no doubt such dreams would become erotic fairly quickly.

He woke from the dreams of holding her better rested and desperate to open his sketch book. It was a nice break from the almost wet dreams Sesshoumaru tended to suffer usually. Those had started with her disappearance and never quite stopped. He could still remember her reaction when he'd first told her about them and blamed her for it. She'd firmly put him in his place then, she'd even laughed at his predicament. She would probably laugh at him even now if he brought it up. At least she'd stopped advising he find a lover every time he tried to talk her into carnal activities.

That had been really upsetting. More so than Sesshoumaru had allowed himself to express. It was true that Inu were fairly promiscuous, especially when the female of a pair chose to withhold carnal affections. It was his conscious choice not to act in such a way. It was a difficult one to abide by and he would have preferred that at least the female he was sacrificing for be kind enough to support him.

Sesshoumaru dropped his travel pack with his clothes and phone next to the bus shells guarding the entrance to the Maxwell home. He wasn't ready to end his run yet, he'd missed the exercise and he was early in any case. A quick jaunt around the property lines served to give him more than just a work out, it answered the instinct to walk the bounds of his territory. His grandfather had taught him the rounds in Japan and he'd made them every time he'd had cause to go out to his father's property for a run. The move to Australia had temporarily forced him to stop, but Nonny had suggested he monitor the outskirts of their land as a way to help Sesshoumaru mourn the loss of his sire's father.

It wasn't his purpose today. Sesshoumaru was just killing time. Their dinner wasn't for another couple hours as it was and he had a little too much energy to sit quietly underground with nothing else to do. It wasn't like he could work on his art. With Maxwell getting desperate to break into his own storerooms for materials, he was getting equally more wily in his efforts to get into them.

The less time the old man had to wear down Sesshoumaru's resolve to keep him locked out, the better. It was why the keys locking Max away from his tools and materials was in the inu's possession and not Nonoka's. It was at her behest that Sesshoumaru take on that responsibility well knowing that it would be difficult for him to be denied his home away from pack and would be limiting his own creative expression.

Sesshoumaru could recognize that the neko would have found it more difficult to stay away from her mate and withstand his cajoling, pleading and whatever other methods the artist resorted to hoping to get around the soft female. There was little doubt in the inu's mind that Nonny would have given up the key and any effort to lock her suffering mate out of the rooms of his best communication with the world he had such a limited part of. There was love there. The type of love that would make denial of the one's happiness painful to both regardless of the reason for it.

Sesshoumaru hoped that someday he and his mate would achieve such an easy companionship, but he wouldn't attempt to rush it. What Nonny and her Maxi had was the product of long years of affection and living together. His relationship hadn't nearly so many years nor so much affection just yet, but they'd both come a long way from the start.

Once finished with the circuit of the property, Sesshoumaru returned to the bus shells. He hadn't known the first time he came out here, but the pewter sculptures housed more than just the motors for the lift. The back of each bus had a small room for changing and decontamination, though the word room was a bit generous. They were more the size of closets but then, it wasn't as if a person needed a lot of room to cleanse themselves and change into safer, cleaner clothing for Nonny.

The only reason Sesshoumaru hadn't been shown to a cleaning room on first visit was because Maxwell could see Sesshoumaru had made the run to the property since there wasn't a car to be seen. Any run from any direction that arrived at their front door was long enough to remove enough of the contaminants that gave Nonny trouble. Their property was just that expansive and that remote. Chosen for those very reasons.

Shifting from his fur before stepping inside, Sesshoumaru dragged the bag of necessaries from his teeth as he stood to full height. Here he had no reason to fear the stalking behaviors of his erstwhile would-be lovers. No one could follow the inu all the way out here without detection and none of the worst offenders were stealthy enough, informed enough to stake out the Maxwell's home in search of some naked flesh. Without the risk of being jumped by some female creature set on fucking him into the ground, Sesshoumaru lacked any fear of nudity in the open. All there was to fear this far from Brisbane was Nonny's sarcastic wit and aged humor. She would say something if he gave her an opening, but her comments were merely slightly embarrassing whilst the actions others would take were harassing.

With a peaceful sigh, he stepped back out into the sun and headed for the slightly less ostentatious entrance to the Maxwell home to make excuses for the rest of his pack and see just what was on the menu for the day. He'd missed Nonny's cooking in the last few weeks. And the cat's penchant for biting commentary on the politics being played in the press. Despite being forced into such seclusion, she kept abreast of current events and consulted on a lot of legal issues for officials at the highest level of government. Her snarky views were entertaining and informative.

Sesshoumaru wondered what she would say about the state of his home country or even just the politics within the greater Taishou pack. He imagined she would see things that even the manipulative Taishou had missed.

At the same time, he never wanted either of the Maxwells known to his father in any capacity. He didn't want Hiroyuki to disrespect them for not being inu, extensively wealthy on the only scale his father understood or exploited for his sire's personal gain. The last was unlikely, as Hiroyuki had little use for art and Nonoka was too reclusive to prove effective, but Sesshoumaru wouldn't take any chances where his distant alpha was concerned. Nonny and Max were a precious secret shared only with his mate and now his miniscule sub-pack. He could only hope Inuyasha wouldn't be so foolish as to tell their parents about them in incautious blabbermouth fashion. So far the phone connection to his mate hadn't been revealed, perhaps Inuyasha was slightly craftier than Sesshoumaru had given him credit for.


	30. Soul Cancer

Mostly. Guess what! We meet Kagome's first hanyou patient in this chapter! Which isn't really giving much away as being hanyou can mean any number of peculiar attributes physical and personality wise. Happiness is giving things away...almost!

Enjoy the chapter, you lovely people who have graduated from such rudeness.

Calendar: December.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Soul Cancer**

Kagome was helping Emily change beds in the oncology ward after her rounds. Her stint in pediatrics was done and her group had moved on to observe the workings of other wards since then. She had been moved to oncology separate from her regular peers so as to lighten her current load.

There was only one oncology ward in the hospital despite the fact that youkai were just as susceptible to the silent menace as humans were. The reason there wasn't a separate ward had to do with the fact that cancer was very rarely detected early enough in the youkai that developed it for it to be treated. Cancer was far deadlier to the longer lived species than it was in humans. Mostly because there were few youkai diseases that attacked their physical bodies successfully.

Youkai fought off disease through the use of youki, the energy that supported their long life and enhanced senses. The successful illnesses tended to attack the source of their youki or to feed off it weakening the individual's over all health. There was rarely a reason to pay much attention to the physical when most of the deadliest ailments focused on their built-in immune system.

There were few diseases that both humans and youkai could suffer from. The most common were the multiple strains of the usual cold, cancer and a few childhood illnesses. Of the three, cancer was the only one likely to kill the non-humans diagnosed with it.

In some ways, working oncology was a relief after the fiascos of the last few months. It wasn't the patients so much as the peers she was with. This latest change separated her from any contact with Lars Marrow - the scumbat - and Marcy. Kagome missed Marcy sometimes especially the Marcy from pre-Sacramento because she simply hadn't been the same since. But Marcy had been a bit of a growing problem since that disastrous weekend.

Kagome had discussed it with Sesshoumaru a few times and though she didn't want to agree with him, she could see where Marcy might want to start avoiding her. Lars' family had chosen Kagome first after all. Marcy wouldn't have won her beau without trapping him and his family in their own stupid contract after Kagome refused to sign it. Marcy couldn't forget that, and while Kagome wasn't at fault, Kagome was the only element in the situation that could be easily removed and avoided.

Soul searching on Kagome's part would not present a solution to Marcy's developing insecurity and jealousy directed toward the secret miko. And Lars only exacerbated the situation, she was sure. He was still stuck on himself and his irresistibility. His vanity probably insisted that Kagome would change her mind or that she was just playing hard to get. Abject refusal hadn't put a dent in Lars' ego and his mouth was full of that same resistance to accepting that anyone could persist in any opinion that didn't make him out to be as awesome and attractive as he perceived he was.

Kagome was more than glad to leave his peer group. His behavior had turned from the politely accepting and friendly manners of before to full on flirting nigh on harassment that Carter-sensei never failed to take exception to. Part of it was her discomfort and part was due to his own future plans which made her even more uncomfortable. There was seemingly no solution to that issue until Kagome made it to oncology. Removal was what she needed.

She wasn't required to have a youkai escort here, and her supervising doctors could share the duty. It didn't completely eliminate the problem, but it did reduce her exposure to Carter-sensei and completely removed Lars from the equation. Getting away from Carter-sensei was impossible now. After the disastrous trip, all of her sponsors had decided to make the little guest house on Carter-sensei's property her permanent residence while she was studying.

Sesshoumaru wasn't happy about it, but Kagome had no options. The sponsors were paying the bills. She'd hoped to convince Miriam-sensei and Ramirez-sensei to let her room with Emily, but they'd been some of the front runners on the idea to have her stay where she was. Just as well, Emily had needed the spare room in her apartment to house a wayward cousin that had fallen off the family tree. Emily had severed ties with Emil's family voluntarily. Jewel had been disowned unwillingly and had no other place to go. Kagome wasn't quite sure what a southern youkai family would disown such a young female for, but she was quite sure she didn't want anything to do with the family that would do such a thing. Jewel was barely out of elementary school, far too young for anything that was unforgivable in the miko's humble opinion.

"You're getting good at the corners, Kag-love," Emily praised the med student. Her finely manicured claws smoothed over the bleached sheets. The patient in this room was currently undergoing radiation and wouldn't return for another twenty minutes. It was altogether a more pleasant task when Jacques wasn't present during this chore. The man was a cantankerous thorn in the side of every staff member unfortunate enough to come through the door. He wasn't much better with med students or their escorting physicians.

On the outside, Jacques had been a rather successful if arrogant divorce attorney. He'd had wealth and respect, a staunch reputation as a courtroom bull dog, but none of that mattered in here. Cancer didn't care if you were wealthy, respected, or universally loved. It didn't care if you had accomplished everything you intended to do before death. The disease struck, and you were reduced to how healthy you lived and the ties that held the tightest, or in Jacques case, the ties that were never there.

Jacques was an unhappy man finding that his life amounted to very little in the things that mattered most. No friends came to visit, no colleagues, no family and he had no peaceful hobbies to distract him from this simple fact. Nobody cared if he survived long enough to beat the cancer.

It wasn't the first time Kagome had encountered such a person in her observations of the various wards in the hospital. It was a common conclusion many people came to when faced with a serious illness that required a long term stay on the premises. Jacques just took it a bit far. His profession had left him with a strong vocabulary and a combative manner. Anyone that entered his presence that wasn't a specialist was duly insulted within an inch of their life for their lack of prestige and estimable intelligence. And the Specialists were berated and railed at when he failed to meet their estimates of the best case scenario.

"Stop wool-gathering, Kag-girl," Emily scolded her. "We don't want to be caught in here when he comes back!" Kagome nodded sharply and plopped the fluffed pillow back on the head of the bed. Emily grabbed the emptied tray from the bed table and dropped it on the top of the cart before hurriedly pushing it out the door. "You'd think with the fuss he makes over a change of sheets that we were charging him full price for five hundred count Egyptian cotton every time."

"Well, he is being charged the laundry fee as part of the hospital bill," Kagome murmured quietly as she trailed after her good friend.

"Yeah, but he'd be charged that whether we changed the sheets or not," Emily muttered as they moved to the next room on the hall. "Sanitary conditions require we change the sheets. With his compromised immune system it's more necessary than in any other ward of the hospital."

"That would require he accept his vulnerability," Kagome responded mildly. "I think that's his biggest problem." They were very careful never to use identifiable names. It was always numbers or tongue-in-cheek trait names. Jacques was known as Snaggletooth among the staff. Kagome wasn't certain of all the social context, but she imagined anything referencing teeth was sort of fitting with the chewing he did on everybody unfortunate enough to be exposed and cornered by him.

Stepping into the next room down the hall, Emily greeted the patient and the family member in close attendance. Gertrude was far more pleasant than her neighbor. She was bravely facing down breast cancer for the second time. It required the removal of her surviving breast from the first round, but she was proving resilient, her spirits held buoyant by the constant presence of one or the other of her sisters and regular visits from her spouse and their joint children. "We need to change out your sheets, love," Emily gently informed the two women. Hilde helped Gertrude out of the bed and into the chairs under the window.

Kagome moved to start loosening the corners so Emily could bundle up the bedding and dump it in the cart. She still wasn't allowed to lift or pull anything. Her ribs were healing, they were even mending at an accelerated rate for a human, but they were still tender. There was still a risk of doing herself harm. Emily watched her like a hawk all of the time. Luckily she was very good at disguising it so Kagome didn't feel quite so uncomfortable, a bug under the magnifying glass. Some of the nurses weren't so nice about monitoring her or so quiet about limiting her activities. She blamed Rosa and their own disgruntled opinion of having to babysit a med student on top of everything else they had to do. None of them thought Kagome stuck around to learn from them, or that she could possibly help them accomplish their tasks. No one but Emily and for that, Kagome would always love the transgender female.

Kagome wasn't required to help with these chores. She wasn't required to make nice with the nurses and orderlies, but it wasn't a bad idea either. Besides it allowed her to observe more than the required rounds did. She got to know the patients and the complaints they didn't make to the doctors. There were things the nurses heard and knew. Things the orderlies overheard that would never come out with a doctor. And Kagome intended to know how to build a rapport with her patients and the staff that took care of them.

Emily efficiently removed the loosened sheets, dumping them in the cart she'd left in the hall before selecting a clean set to replace them. Kagome patiently waited for her partner to fling the ends of the bottom sheet to her side before reaching to smooth and tuck everything into place according to regulation.

Gertrude's code name was Sunshine and her kids when visiting were her Sunbeams. Most of the staff admired Gertrude's resilience and her support network in the face of a second bout of breast cancer. And she never had anything unpleasant to say to the staff which was rare in oncology. Here people were faced with prolonged illness unlike any other. Chances of survival were low and chances of relapse high.

They efficiently finished in Gertrude's room and stepped out into the hall to move on.

"-Higurashi!" Kagome looked up to search the hall. There were very few people who attempted to pronounce her family name let alone address her by it.

"Who's calling you?" Emily murmured her confusion. Very few people knew that Kagome stayed in the ward after the required rounds earlier in the day. None of her new peers had bothered to make nice yet and her sponsors and supervising doctors usually disappeared faster than the released students due to pressing matters elsewhere in the hospital. Most of the patients in this ward didn't know her by name yet and there was no real reason for any from her previous wards to come seeking her. She was just another med student to them, unnamed and unneeded.

Kagome shrugged as she continued trying to locate the source. Over the counters at the nurses station across from the elevators, she spotted a head of salt and pepper hair peeking from the far side. "Pepper?" Kagome questioned her own conclusion. There was no reason for the cured kit to be hunting for her through oncology. There was no reason for Pepper to be hunting for her without her parents she added in her thoughts and the secret miko's eyes darted behind the scurrying kit for the two youkai that had done her so much damage in their last meeting.

"Pepper? You mean the kit whose invitation landed you broken ribs and a trip to the emergency room?" Emily gasped. Kagome nodded in answer as despite all reasons to the contrary her name was called once again from the mouth of a kit that was clearly Pepper. Emily wedged Kagome between the cart and the wall behind her. It wouldn't save her from a determined hugger, but it would discourage any impromptu hugging for long enough that Emily could prevent it from reaching Kagome.

Manny's mistake wouldn't be repeated any time soon. Kagome's vulnerable ribs couldn't afford it. She wasn't completely healed yet and a second bone injury could seriously derail her future. More. The earlier injury had already cost her two months and forced her to re-add the youkai pediatrics ward to her schedule, she'd been required to drop it right in the middle because of the injury. Being around youkai was dangerous enough without already being hurt.

"There you are!" Pepper exclaimed as she came to a stop in front of Emily. The kitsune stared up at the taller youkai as her nose worked trying to classify and catalog the individual blocking her way to her target. "You're a hard person to find, Ms. Higurashi."

"Pepper-san," Kagome acknowledged gently, attempting to seem normal despite being trapped behind Emily and her cart. "What are you doing here? I thought you were released weeks ago."

"I was," Pepper responded though her red eyes never left off studying Emily. "I had my latest check up today and I wanted to see you." The little kit finally turned her attention to Kagome, "You don't have to worry. I told my parents they weren't allowed within fifty yards of you after last time. I heard you were hurt," her eyes were sad at the admission. "They're not bad, just stupid."

"You shouldn't speak of them that way," Kagome admonished the young youkai. "They are your parents."

"That doesn't excuse what they did," Pepper insisted obstinately. "I told them if they came closer than that I would inform the council-"

"Just like a child to tattle on the wrong people for the wrong reasons," Emily huffed.

"What would you know about it?" Pepper growled defensively. "You weren't there mister-"

"You will not disrespect Emily-san in my presence," Kagome declared sharply. Gender identity was one of the few areas in which youkai had not far outstripped humanity in acceptance and maturity. It was one of the reasons that she disliked Emily's new house guest despite her unwillingness to accept that Jewel could actually do something worth being disowned for. Jewel, like Pepper just now, refused to treat Emily's lifestyle with the respect it deserved.

"Emily?" Pepper's tone was incredulous given her nose told her something else.

"That _is_ her name," Kagome answered firmly. "As for your parents, despite the injury, they did nothing wrong. They did not know I was human when the damage was done and therefore could not know they needed to temper their strength. If the situation had been different, I would have reported it myself before you ever had the chance to wrongfully threaten them."

"But-"

"Kag-girl reported the nurse who failed to prevent the injury as his presence was meant to protect her from such," Emily cut in, hoping to diffuse the situation and find out the true reason for the kit to have hunted Kagome down. She was willing to allow Kagome out from behind her now that the initial moments of confrontation were over. "Manny's punishment was an example to all."

"Pepper-san, why did you come hunt me down?" Kagome sighed gently, more than ready to resume the chores she and Emily had been steadily working through. "I'm no longer a med student in your ward, I have no further input on your case and wouldn't have for a check up anyway. I am currently banned from the youkai wards all together until I manage to heal completely."

"They're called Demons here Kagome," Emily corrected her. "Honestly, your English is impeccable I don't know why you have trouble with that one word."

"It does not accurately translate. "Demon" has negative connotations that youkai does not," Kagome explained. "And "demon" is gender specific where youkai is all encompassing." Emily paused pensively before smiling warmly.

"I had questions," Pepper answered in a small voice.

"Shippou's questions?" Kagome asked fairly certain that the bratty male was the real reason for this sudden reintroduction. "About why I was even in a youkai ward in the first place?"

"Sort of," Pepper blushed.

"Why don't you show her?" Emily suggested. "He's having a good day and he likes to meet new people though he's a little shy around other kids." Kagome nodded and reached for Pepper's hand. "Don't you break any of her bones kid. I'm trusting you with someone very precious."

Pepper stared wide eyed up at Emily and nodded solemnly. The little kitsune was still confused by what her nose told her and what Kagome did but she took to heart the fragility of Kagome. She never closed her hand to grip Kagome's afraid she would break the fragile bones under the skin. "Do you not have any human friends?" Kagome glanced down at the gray haired kit.

"I do, classmates in school and things," Pepper answered indignantly.

"Do you not know how to touch them without causing harm?" Kagome continued her line of questioning.

"Of course I do!"

"Then why do you think I am so much more breakable than they are?" Kagome tightened her grasp of the little youkai's hand.

Pepper blinked a moment in confusion before closing her hand on Kagome's fingers. "Who are we going to see?"

"A patient here. The only patient on the floor that doesn't have cancer."

"If he doesn't have cancer then why is he here?" the kit asked flummoxed as to why anyone would choose to stay in a ward they didn't need to.

"Because he has proven safest here," Kagome answered quietly. "There really isn't a place for Trevor-chan here or in any other hospital because nobody has done any medical development for his kind."

"I don't understand," the kit shook her head.

Kagome smiled gently down at her companion before pulling them to a stop outside another hospital room. "Raymond-san," she called through the open door. "I've brought someone to meet Trevor-chan if that's all right."

A tall, willowy woman peeked around the bathroom wall inside the unit. She smiled when she caught a glimpse of Pepper, "He likes meeting new people. He's even having a good day."

Kagome nodded and drew the suddenly shy kit in behind her as they entered. Trevor came into view with his wide brown eyes and his toothy grin. His horns were starting to come in which is the only reason Trevor was spending this "good day" inside his room instead of playing tag with the nurses and orderlies throughout the ward. The staff called him Monty amongst themselves, as in full Monty instead of Monty Python though Kagome never fully understood the distinction. All she knew was before his horns had started to come in and the headaches associated with the process kept him down and sensitive to noise, he would race through the halls in just his skin skidding his hooves to find traction and giggling up a storm as his momma chased after him.

His youkai traits were the result of Mrs. Raymond's heritage as her family were a hardy tribe of mountain goats. Trevor was too young for the characteristic beard, but his hooves had been the reason the administration installed the black textured strips down all the hallways on the floor and relaxed the shoe policy just for him. Shoes just didn't work on feet without toes, arches or the other characteristic traits of human feet.

"Trevor-chan," Kagome smiled warmly. "I heard you were feeling better today!"

Trevor was only four and not terribly talkative, though his understanding was impeccable. So when he only grinned and nodded in response Kagome knew it wasn't because he was afraid of her or didn't like her.

Kagome dragged Pepper forward by the hand and introduced her, "This is my friend Pepper-san and she just got out of the hospital recently. We met while I was learning in the youkai pediatric wards and she was very sick. Since she's gotten better she was wondering what I was doing in a youkai ward at all."

"Kag'me is going to make me better!" Trevor announced in answer gleefully proud. "I's special!"

"I'm going to try someday," Kagome nodded carefully, taking note of the tight expression on his mom's face. Time was running out for Trevor though he still had good days they were only so by comparison to his bad days. Trevor had developed pneumonia as a baby and his lungs had never fully cleared from it. There were strings of days where they had to fight his own body so he could breath. There were days when he failed to wake because he just wasn't getting enough oxygen despite being hooked up to breathing machines, oxygen tubes, and Ivs. And those days were outnumbering the good by an increasing margin. Trevor was losing the battle and they didn't know how to better help him.

He wasn't contagious, but his immune system was compromised by the prolonged illness. Trevor had caught a simple cold when he was held in the human Children's ward two years ago and nearly died. That was when the little hanyou had been moved to Oncology. Most immune systems on the floor were severely compromised by the treatment plans in place so the staff were very careful to maintain the highest level of sterility possible without keeping everyone in individual clean rooms.

"Hello ladies," one of the nurses from pediatrics came in behind Kagome and Pepper. "How's my favorite Mighty Man?"

"Oscar!" Trevor found the courage to come around his mother in order to race towards the tall nurse. "What are we doing today, Mr. Oscar?"

"Well we have an appointment in x-ray today, so why don't you have your mom grab your blankets and lets go?" The Ferret youkai swept the boy up from the floor before turning and leading the way out of the room to the waiting wheelchair required for Trevor's official transport between wards. "The rocket chair is ready and waiting for you."

Their voices trailed out of Kagome's hearing as she slowly lead Pepper back out of the now empty room. "I don't understand," the kit stared up at Kagome, features scrunched up with her profound confusion. "He's different. He smelled like his mom...but also like you."

"Because he is half one and half the other," Kagome answered. "Trevor is half and that's the problem." She headed back toward where they'd left Emily. "The doctors can't help him because nobody knows how. There are youkai doctors and human doctors but no one in between. Not yet."

"You're going to be in between," Pepper concluded firmly, pleased with herself for figuring it out on her own.

"I'm going to try to be anyway," Kagome replied. "but first I have to learn what there is to know before I can start trying to discover what's left to find out."

"That's why you were there," Pepper continued for her. "You have to know Demon medicine and human medicine to make something in between."

"Yes," Kagome agreed. "Any more questions?"

"Can I come see you again?" Pepper asked.

"Maybe, if you can find me," Kagome smiled slyly. "I'm only in oncology for another couple weeks and then I move on." Pepper grinned at the challenge before heading off to find her parents. Kagome hoped she'd inspired Pepper to think a little more about her world and that she would in turn do the same for others. Curiosity would be the way to find allies in the nearest future of her world.


	31. The Things We Learn

Back to Sesshoumaru whose life isn't quite a bouquet of daisies. It's great that Willem Maxwell is on the mend, but in the meantime, our hero needs employment. With Maxwell-sensei incapable of creating his art, Sesshoumaru is at loose ends, as is his visa. Don't worry, Nonny's on top of things!

Off to work for me too!

Calendar: February.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Things We Learn**

Sesshoumaru carefully aligned his tool with the wood dowel in his hand and drew across the surface in a continuous movement that carved a curling stream of paper thin wood from the previously uniform surface. The cut wood sent up a breath of scent that he was growing to thoroughly enjoy.

The party celebrating Maxwell-sensei's release from restriction hadn't marked the reinstatement of Sesshoumaru's lessons or his work. He had been informed that the elder human's slightly compromised health would slow down his healing. Yes, his stitches were gone, but so was the strength that had formally infused that arm. The scar tissue was stiffer than the muscle had formerly been and it would take long term physical therapy to restore what had been lost. It would inevitably delay any need for more art supplies and doubly slow Max's creative process.

There would be no more unloading days and no loading days either.

Sesshoumaru had been saddened and anxious over the news. It hadn't surprised him as his mate's long foray into the medical field had taught him what to expect. Still, it was a disappointment and left him worrying over how he could keep his work visa without a job of some kind.

He should have known that Nonny-san would have already had a solution in place. She was aware of what Sesshoumaru's visa required. She was perhaps the best ally Sesshoumaru had ever had and she was turning out to be remarkably cognizant of pack needs given the reality that neko were not a species prone to harboring such bonds.

The wily cat had found him a job and a new medium to learn the manipulation of. She'd had his new boss waiting to meet him the day of their impromptu party with Maxwell-sensei grumbling against the necessity for all the hours of the party. Kikyou and Inuyasha had been amazingly supportive and very prompt to guarantee their silence about his hobby should Hiroyuki bother to ask his favorite son about his disregarded heir, and that was before Nonny had broken out Sesshoumaru's portfolio.

Like Juuro-sensei in Japan, Sesshoumaru's teacher-well, his mate-was keeping a record of all his finished pieces. She'd even added the rough fashioned jewelry he'd made for his mate for their last anniversary and the pin he'd made for Trevor, the hanyou he'd never met. The inu youkai hadn't even been aware the partial neko knew about those little mementos. He'd made them to show his sweet mate that he cared and that he supported her efforts.

The little metal pin Sesshoumaru had made for the secret miko's first hanyou patient would certainly last longer than a mere paper crane. He had told her as much when she first received it. It had taken some work to fold and mold the metal before smoothing it down to eliminate all sharp edges first. Jewelry was a bit more tricky than free standing sculpture because it would be handled so much more by hands that were susceptible to being cut. The pieces were also smaller, much smaller than anything else he'd worked on.

Sesshoumaru believed his attempts at jewelry were clumsy at best. When he'd communicated as much to his mate, she'd chuckled warmly in her way and told him that practice would improve his results. She'd also added that he might still think badly of his efforts due to an artist's unfailing belief that everything he does could be and should be better than it is. He'd growled at her because he didn't agonize over things like that. Once a piece was finished, he gave it one look over to assess it, decide whether his purpose had been achieved before moving on. He was not sentimental, she knew that. He held no attachment to _things_.

His new bosses, Walter and Alma Hughes, had glanced over everything but mostly ignored the collection of pictorial evidence. They were not artists as the word goes, they were craftsmen of an age where the term was imbued with far more respect than art. Walter made wood furniture, carved by hand and adorned with one-of-a-kind embellishments that the unseemly wealthy clamored for. Alma made decorative enameled flatware, mostly plates and wall hangings, though she was quite capable of applying her skill to other uses.

Sesshoumaru was to apprentice under both. The wood working gave him reason to use tools as the dowels and planks would splinter or crack if handled improperly. It was one medium that wouldn't respond well to his brute strength and had no real resistance to his more caustic youki produced toxins. In this way, metal was more forgiving for him to work with. It had provided a great deal of frustration after his first few efforts were deemed unusable for the projects Walter was working on, but the inu was slowly getting the hang of it. His mate was encouraging and the difficulties were part of every learning curve.

Actually his mate had laughed at his frustration because it proved he'd never been challenged with something he wasn't initially good at. Sketching had proven an almost natural skill. Bending and arranging the metals in Max's studio had only required the use of his hands and brute, youkai strength. Carving required a finer control of his force and there was no erasing an errant line. A false cut couldn't be taken back and the wood couldn't just be melted down and recast into something he could continue using without significant loss of material.

Sesshoumaru carefully removed the sharp edge and blew the dust and curling stream of white wood from the cut. Critically his amber eyes studied the wood from every angle, checking the cut for uniformity and proper placement. He set the piece in his hand beside the one Walter had supplied and judged his progress towards making an exact copy. They needed three more for the back of an elaborate chair someone had commissioned. Walter was working on the medallion that would mark the seat, arms, and flat back that would rest above these dowels once finished. The legs had also been elaborately carved by Sesshoumaru's hands, trying to match the design assigned by Walter from the outset. They weren't as perfect as the apprentice would prefer, but they were deemed sufficient for the base.

It was exhilarating and exhausting, the edge of demand for results marked each breath of sawdust flavored air. Sesshoumaru had never had a problem with pressure and expectation before, but he had never cared as much before or had this much trouble meeting deadlines. The work required more of his attention and focus than any previous project had to date. His thumb rubbed over the freshly exposed surface feeling for the grain of the wood and any imperfections that would ruin the next cut. The main weight of the finish date was more on his mentor's shoulders than his own since it was Walter's name and reputation on the line. Sesshoumaru had learned it was better to work slow and precise than fast and haphazard as his faster efforts usually found home in the firewood bin.

Walter was generally faster at all of the pieces than Sesshoumaru so the old man would design the parts that need replication, finish one and assign the inu to work to create the others while the old man turned to more difficult pieces. If Walter finished before Sesshoumaru did, the craftsman would return to help complete the rest.

At first Sesshoumaru had struggled not to take the assistance as criticism for his pace. His mate had scolded him hard when he'd first complained about it. She'd said that unless the teacher addressed his work with censure there was no reason to see negative commentary where it wasn't. Nobody was fast the first time they learned to do everything. Speed came with practice and confidence. That his confidence had come before experience had certainly been corrected with his first failures and the distant woman had failed to be as sympathetic as he'd wished. Looking back now that some time had passed allowed him to see her point, but it was the first time he had ever failed at anything.

There hadn't been much chance to explore Alma's craft yet. Shortly after the arrangements for his apprenticeship had been finalized the Hughes had taken in their granddaughter. The family was going through a hard time and the girl was better served in their care than that of her parents.

Sesshoumaru wasn't certain of the details. He was not part of their family and neither Walter nor Alma had taken him into their confidence. All that mattered was that Alma's time was taken up with seeing to the child's needs leaving little time for teaching her craft. Besides, he was having enough trouble with the wood working without taking up painting with powders that required firing to set. Enamel was not something he'd ever aspired to perfect, though the finish would have been a nice addition to some future offerings to his mate.

Metal had limited colors. Wood was the same. Enamel would have allowed him to embellish his uncreated favors with brighter colors. Women preferred some variety in their gifts, even handmade ones produced for courting. Sesshoumaru was still wooing his mate though he was certain he had won some ground in her affections. Until she was wrapped in his arms and he had thoroughly reclaimed and memorized every inch of her person, he would continue to cultivate her regard. However, he was fully aware that she wouldn't appreciate him harassing his new sensei for lessons Alma hadn't time to give. His mate was respectful and courteous of those around her, he doubted she wouldn't look for and appreciate equal qualities in him.

Inconvenient though it was, Sesshoumaru could well see the demands on Alma's time. Trish had not spoken since being brought into the Hughes home and it was worrying the elder humans. She struggled with her homework and hadn't made friends in her new school. She shrunk from every broad gesture either Alma or Walter made. The child had also failed to find other means of communicating her needs. Alma cooked meals on a set schedule and provided healthy snacks for the wiry, undernourished girl. It was hard to tell if Trish didn't eat something because she wasn't hungry or just plain didn't like what was presented.

Alma's attention was rightfully glued to seeing to Trish's needs. He had no doubt their granddaughter's wants would have been considered also had they ever been expressed. They wouldn't spoil or coddle her. Alma and Walter were too experienced with the raising of children for that. But Trish's continued silence had them worried.

As Sesshoumaru was well aware of. Often, after Trish came home from school and settled at the end of his work bench, the two grandparents would step out for a moment to confer beyond the child's hearing. He wondered if they simply weren't aware they were still within his aural range. The inu was fairly certain neither Alma nor Walter wanted Sesshoumaru to be in on their raising concerns over the mental well-being of their charge.

Sesshoumaru politely never brought it up. Their joint anxiety over Trish had not effected Walter's work negatively thus Sesshoumaru hadn't anything to complain about. Their worries had no standing in Sesshoumaru's life and no overtures of friendship would cover inquiring into something they refused to share. Such would be intrusive even for these more aggressive cultures. Family was family business.

He set the tool back against the dowel in a new location and carefully pressed down so the edge bit into the surface just enough. A number of his first failures had been result of too much pressure and cutting too deep into the surface.

Sesshoumaru was slowly learning about the older couple in all the ways he had learned about Nonoka and Willem Maxwell. It was slower going as the old human couple wasn't quite as obvious in their personalities as the Maxwells, but it was impossible not to notice their little quirks when he worked so closely with them. The Hughes worked out of a workshop instead of a studio and the quarters were far more cramped than he'd thought they would be.

The small room was tight with tables covered in a thin layer of sawdust and unfired enamel residue. Hand tools hung from the walls in specific order. Paint brushes sat drying by the sink from the last time Alma had chanced to progress on her latest work. There was little work space that didn't brush up close to another occupant in the small room. He hadn't realized what the change in space would mean until he arrived his first day with his long hair pulled back into the simple tail he wore at the Maxwell's. Alma had glanced him over and forced him into a chair so she could fix his hair.

Sesshoumaru now sported a braided crown he made a point of pulling down the minute he was done for the day. Inuyasha would guy him mercilessly if he ever saw it. He was merely lucky that all Walter had done was snort at him when _he_ saw it. Of course the old man didn't care what Sesshoumaru looked like as long as he did the work.

Walter sat in the only open space towards the large barn door. The overly ornamental chair was taking shape under his hands. The legs and seat were carefully assembled in wait for the addition of the dowels Sesshoumaru was working on. To be topped with the chair back with its carved medallion. Once the balding man was satisfied with the stability of the construction and had all the clamps in place, he would come over to start work on the arms. Walter preferred to work at the table behind Sesshoumaru as it was farthest from the doors and the sink. He claimed even the presence of a dry sink could contaminate his wooden projects with excess moisture. It was a long-lived argument between the couple.

Alma needed the water source for her enameling projects and brushes. Her favored work bench was closest to the door next to her kiln. The large kiln sat on a slab of concrete several feet from the building. The glass powder remnants of previous jobs and commissions stained the flat surface of her work space in multiple muted colors. She worked with liquid enamel, but when it dried it was a fine powder difficult to clean up and capable of causing respiratory irritation.

Once or twice a week, Alma would spray the bench down with a shellacking solution. It glued the residue to the work surfaces without kicking any of the powder into the air. He wasn't certain how she managed, but the surfaces were never sticky after it dried, so it was an ideal method for dealing with the fine glass particles left behind. It was certainly more effective than trying to get rid of it all with a damp rag on a rough surface like the work benches.

Walter complained about that too, as the spray often got on the floor and the wall behind the bench. Walter didn't care about those surfaces but he was convinced the spray traveled further and tainted his work. Alma never told him, but about once a month she wiped down the rest of the work benches before Shellacking them as well. Sesshoumaru could smell it.

Sesshoumaru thought the two just liked to give each other a hard time. The fussing was always about the same things. Moisture, shellacking spray, enamel dust, wood shavings, residual heat, work space, project storage. If they didn't fight over these things, Sesshoumaru was fairly certain they would hardly speak to each other at all. It was always possible that these limits were only apparent because they wouldn't talk about more personal topics in front of him. He certainly hoped they communicated more in private, about more than just Trish.

True, the girl was struggling and her health was their most immediate and prevalent concern, but she wasn't their entire lives. The introduction of responsibility over Trish was only a new addition to the lives they'd lead before. It would be foolish to think that Trish would supersede and replace everything else in their lives. Sesshoumaru was still their apprentice after all.

Alma generally picked the child up from school and parked her at the other end of Sesshoumaru's work bench to do her homework. He thought it was somewhat counter productive to expect Trish to focus on school assignments in a room full of far more active company. She seemed to focus fairly well as he never caught her eyes staring at anyone else or the tools on the wall, so it was worrying that her assignments would take so long to complete. He wouldn't just assume a lack of intelligence like he might have in former days or like Inuyasha still did most days.

The scent of saline slowly stained the air he breathed. Trish was leaking. Alma had already left to start fixing dinner for the humans and Walter had followed shortly after to call a supplier. Sesshoumaru had run through a considerable number of wooden dowels in his apprenticeship so far. There was still enough to finish this project, but not the next one lined up.

His amber eyes swung from the dowel before making another cut and studied the child slouched over her textbook. Trish's forehead was plastered to the glossy pages and her shoulders were shaking noticeably. He had to address it, there was no one else. "Are you injured?" Sesshoumaru inquired. He had to be careful how he went about his questioning. If he pressed too hard, she might never open up. If he didn't take the opportunity before him, it might be months before she would leave an opening for communication.

Trish jerked upright in surprise at the question, tears flew from her reddened cheeks. Her short hair was wild and unruly from the many encounters with frustrated fingers. When she had first been given into the Hughes' custody it was clear the dark mop had been attacked with shears. The ends were uneven and choppy. Alma's efforts to fix the coif had reduced the child to something too short for a pixie cut. He was certain the hairdo had rained more stress on the girl in the form of teasing but it couldn't be helped.

"Are you injured?" he asked again, certain she had forgotten his words in her surprise. "I can smell your tears. Have you been harmed in some way?"

Mouth gaping, Trish shook her head negatively. It was the closest to real communication she had deigned to use since her arrival. Alma couldn't even get the girl to agree or disagree with any suggestions so far.

"Are you sad?" Sesshoumaru began playing twenty questions, only the answers were so much more important than anything ever learned during most games. He set his work down and turned more in her direction to help indicate his seriousness and all important interest in her responses. Her repeated gesture allowed him to move forward with another question. "Are you afraid?"

Her expression stilled with tension before she again shook her head to refute that fear was the motivation for her tears. Her hesitation told him that while she probably was afraid of something it wasn't an overwhelming fear, the sort that would draw tears.

"Are you anxious?" When she paused as if befuddled, he felt Trish was confused over the word. Basic definition placed fear as a synonym for anxiety. "You worry for something that has not happened?" Finally Trish gifted him with a nod, a sharp dip of her chin and rise of her eyes. It wasn't the entire situation, but acknowledging her worry directed him in a good direction. Sesshoumaru sat in thought for a moment considering what worries a child her age could have that wouldn't cause her to withdraw instead of communicating.

Her life before finding a home with the Hughes was off limits. If she were sad about the change, he would not be the person she'd be willing to talk to about it. If she were suffering prolonged effects from some abuse delivered by the hands of her now incarcerated parents, it should be handled by her grandparents or a counselor. It greatly limited what he could assume and talk about. The child's emotional state was as prickly as a cactus, her defenses were out and alert. Navigating between the sharper subjects would be as tricky as avoiding mines in a field.

"End of term approaches," he observed aloud. It was a topic that likely wouldn't have too many emotions attached and wasn't as secret or private as her personal history. "You worry for your marks." Trish tensed up but didn't confirm or deny his words. There was more to it. "You worry for _their_ reaction to your marks." The girl nodded and let out a wail.

He had appreciated the silence of her tears. He was inu and male. Tears were difficult enough to handle without the sound effects. He could never not notice tears for the smell, but a scent was subtle in its prodding as opposed to the sounds of sorrow, anguish, and distress. A scent begged for attention, a sob demanded it. Sesshoumaru wouldn't try to calm her, she needed the release though he was surprised she felt comfortable achieving it with him. He certainly didn't inspire confidence usually. Perhaps it was the braid circling his head like a hairy crown?

All Sesshoumaru knew was that the outburst, if walked in on by either Walter or Alma would get him into some serious trouble. He was the only one in the room who could have induced their granddaughter to cry so violently. There was no reason to believe Trish would just suddenly start bawling without provocation. It was entirely likely his apprenticeship would be terminated if they thought he'd hurt the girl in some way and he had absolutely no doubt Trish herself wouldn't break her code of silence to defend him. There wasn't enough emotional connection to him to haul her out of that self imposed shell. And he didn't want to be the one she formed that connection with, it would be viewed as inappropriate in the eyes of her grandparents.

"Hn," he commented quietly, certain Trish hadn't heard him over her continued gulps and panting. Sesshoumaru hoped she cried herself out before getting sick. He likewise hoped her grandparents failed to return before that happened. It was likely she'd been holding it in to avoid their questions and worry. He would like to just go back to work on his assigned project, but knew doing so would likely cost more than Trish could afford.

She would assume that he didn't care and shut him out, going back to internalizing everything until she exploded on someone else in the future. So Sesshoumaru reached out to drag the text book from her limp grasp. The subject of the book was history, written in clear, simple English text interspersed with pertinent illustrations of the event being discussed. He wasn't particularly familiar with Australian history or what in specific they would choose to teach a child of Trish's age group. This wasn't the problem.

Sesshoumaru could read along with her and help her understanding without much difficulty. The problem arose with the fact he'd seen her breeze through the majority of her math assignments and slow over every task that involved reading. He suspected that she either had never properly learned to read or had some learning difficulty that prohibited quicker assimilation of written information. Testing would be required to ascertain the second. Tutors would be needed in either case.

Trish would need more help than he could capably give. She needed specialists and counseling, people trained to make informed decisions to direct her education and recovering psyche down productive paths. He didn't know where she'd come from, what she'd been through or even why custody had been given over to Walter and Alma, but he knew she'd lived through some hell and the adjustment to escaping it would take time.

"There is no shame in not understanding something you haven't been taught," he declared mildly. "Understanding comes with practice and proper teaching. If you need help they will see to it that you receive it, but they cannot provide what they do not know you need."

Trish froze mid-sob. Apparently communicating was still an issue. She feared disappointing them more than wallowing in despair. Sometimes inaction felt safer than reaching for change no matter the outcome or the long time repercussions. She was young to feel that way, but he'd been trapped in that place himself once. It took his mate to pull him out and he was still climbing. The work and effort was his own. All that mystery woman had done was ask the questions he'd avoided and shown through her life that there was more than the expectations of others to direct his actions.

"I can raise the subject with them, but you need to stand beside me to show confirmation," Sesshoumaru offered reluctantly. Trish's answer was to reach out for his clawed hand, raising to her feet in order to grasp the strong digits. He rose to mirror her and lead the way into the house from the outbuilding that served as workshop. He was not looking forward to this discussion. But, as life with Taishou Hiroyuki as a father had taught Sesshoumaru, life was full of uncomfortable conversations and unpleasant tasks.

This one he would tackle willingly because it was certainly more worthwhile than anything his father had dragged him through. Sesshoumaru would be helping somebody get their life back on track rather than orchestrating some corporate takeover. He'd be helping to build somebody back up rather than decimating their image ruthlessly. Creation, construction was far more fulfilling than devastation. A small smirk snuck across his face as he thought, this was also more in keeping with what his mate was doing with her life as well.


	32. Long Way Round

All Saints Day, I suppose it is fitting that this chapter came out the day after Halloween. Many of you won't be happy with what happens in this chapter. It's sad and hard. It was sad even to write it, but the story required it. Bad things happen because the world is an imperfect place and the human element derives its flaws as much from environment as species. I don't expect love for this chapter, but it is important.

Calendar: April.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Long Way 'Round**

Kagome took a deep breath and let it out slowly as she slumped against the wall outside Trevor's room. She'd moved on in her training, but she still returned to visit Trevor. And now Jeremy.

Kagome's new rounds were set in the Maternity wards.

Human maternity was mostly messy delivery and babies in baskets. She wasn't allowed much interaction with the babies and the mothers were typically exhausted or surrounded by family. Delivery was handled by professionals she observed from the windows outside the room to keep out of the way and avoid upsetting a laboring mother further.

Youkai maternity had extreme limits on her contact and time. It was frustrating sometimes, but Kagome understood. Breeding was exceedingly serious to the longer lived species and instinct drove them to view outsiders as threats rather than interested observers. If Kagome had been male she never would have been allowed on the floor at all unless she was accompanying her own laboring mate. The limits on how much time she could spend there allowed her to resume rounds of the youkai children's ward.

A normal day saw her heading home exhausted long before this hour of the day, but Kagome wasn't going home tonight. And she hadn't been going home for a couple of days now.

Trevor was losing the big fight.

There were several people staying on to keep vigil with him. Nurses and fellow patients, his dad was driving in from his job down the coast, rushing in hopes of arriving before Trevor let go. Mrs. Raymond sat beside her baby, holding his hand, surrounded by the ventilators and monitors struggling to keep him alive all while tracking the fact they weren't successful. It was wearying and heartbreaking in the extreme.

It would be Kagome's first death since starting medical school. The worst part about it was that she was almost certain she knew how they could have saved him if they'd had the knowledge sooner and better tools available.

Kagome had suggested that it might be his youkai side that had prevented their ability to cure his pneumonia. She'd gone back through his records, after receiving permission from his mother, and noticed that Trevor's good days coincided almost entirely with his human time. Generally, his health improved after time spent human. He reacted more positively to treatment while his youki was held under and in the immediate days that followed.

It made a twisted sort of sense. Pneumonia was a human ailment, all forms of it were inflicted on human lungs. Treatment was also developed for the humans that contracted it. Youkai and youki wouldn't know what to do with such an illness. The human component of Trevor's body had stumped his youkai side. While his youki was dominant, his human vulnerability wasn't fully protected by the youki defense against disease.

Coupled with the reality that youkai reacted badly to artificial means of breathing and there was no safe means of treating Trevor's pneumonia. His bad days were made worse by his youkai side fighting the ventilators. Every time previous, each episode of bad days ended with his human time and he'd get better enough to go off the machines and tubes forcing air into him.

This time wasn't going to end like that. His good days were lasting shorter and shorter periods of time upping the risk that his youki would reject the ventilator entirely before his human time could come and extract enough good out of it for him to get by until the next time.

Her suggestion had not been met with any action. Whether she was right and her mentors refused to believe it because of their own youkai nature or whether she was wrong didn't matter. There wasn't a way to suppress Trevor's youki that wouldn't hurt him badly. Not yet anyway. If she'd made the connection during a string of good days or even during his human time, maybe they would have been willing to try it, but she'd missed that window and Trevor wasn't going to make it.

He was unconscious and struggling to breath on the machine. He wasn't getting enough oxygen and his lips and finger nails were turning blue. His heart labored to keep him alive while his lungs worked to drown the life out of him. It was almost a comfort he wasn't able to feel the pain of each breath, to know he would slip away never knowing what was happening or the pain they felt at watching and waiting.

Kagome had stepped out with Cheryl, after the other woman had completed her nightly ritual of reading to the small boy. Cheryl was the only youkai on the Oncology floor for cancer treatment. Her story wasn't a happy one and she had railed at her fate upon arrival certain her diagnosis was a death sentence despite being admitted to Oncology in this hospital rather than some hospice.

Cheryl was a spider youkai who had only ever wanted to be a mother. Her problem was that she'd never found a male worthy of siring those offspring. She'd come close in the 1930s. She'd been engaged and planning her mating with joy. Then the war happened and her male had been sent off to fight.

The male who came back wasn't the same person anymore and neither was she. Cheryl set him free and he found someone else while she continued to look for someone worthy. The cancer was found before that could happen. It threatened the womb that had never found use and her life that stood incomplete without motherhood.

It was caught early enough for treatment, but Cheryl hadn't realized that made a difference. Statistics never considered individual circumstances, just the final outcome of youkai cancer sufferers in general. The numbers were all Cheryl knew and they were stacked against her. She hadn't realized that she was lucky in that her cancer was detected early enough to treat and therefore, stood outside the doomsayer's numbers altogether.

It had been hard on the nurses when sunny Gertrude had been released and her room had been filled by the depressed and angry spider instead. Kagome hadn't been aware that the uniform hospital rooms could seem so different with just a change in patient.

Kagome still helped the nurses in Oncology when her regular rounds were done. She found that she couldn't leave these patients behind, partly because she knew them better than any other set of patients, but mostly because the hanyou were here.

When Kagome had first met Cheryl, the spider had totally rubbed her the wrong way with her fatalistic views on her situation despite having every chance to survive living just down the hall from Trevor who, despite never being well, was like any other cheerful kid. He smiled where Cheryl frowned. Played tag with the nurses where the spider hid under the starched coverings of her bed with the lights always off. She was wallowing in self-pity when she had little reason where Trevor had every reason and still laughed with his nurses and tried to cheer his mom up.

After the first week, Kagome had snapped and dragged the overly indulgent arachnid from her room and down the hall for a very desperately needed reality check. The secret miko had ripped a few strips off the older youkai and cleared up a few of her misconceptions. Cheryl was going to get to leave in a few weeks. Trevor was going to die here.

And in all likelihood, he was going to leave them all tonight. Cheryl had made it a habit after that night to stop in and read to the little halfer for an hour, good day or bad day didn't matter. If the ventilators were loud, the spider read louder to be heard, not caring that the little boy wasn't awake to listen.

Two weeks ago they'd gotten another hanyou boy, a toddler who'd been moved in once his condition was cleared for the ward. Jeremy was another hanyou whose illness wasn't contagious. The two year old half bear suffered from brittle bones caused by a natural fluid produced by bear youkai in north America. In nature, a Bear would use it to make the bones of prey easier to digest and less likely to cause injury during ingestion. In a cub that was also half human it caused bones so brittle he'd never had the chance to walk and risked breakage if he sat up too quickly or for too long.

Oh but the boy was adorable. Two weeks and Kagome was already in love with Jeremy the same as she was with Trevor. And it would hurt her just as much when he lost the fight to live. Jeremy's youkai heritage manifested itself in a fine chocolate fur that covered most of his body. His dark eyes shone with an intelligence that would never be tested or expressed beyond the garbled conversations and laughter he used now. His teeth had been one of the major casualties, the first to fall to his own nature fighting against him. His enforced inactivity had left him on the rounder side of shapes.

He looked like a little furred Buddha, always smiling with his big furred belly and his intelligent and peaceful eyes. Cheryl read to him too and while Jeremy wasn't going to go tonight with Trevor, the loss of Trevor highlighted the fact that Kagome hadn't met her goal yet and hadn't been able to even posit a viable theory to be tested or reviewed by peers in time to save either boy.

"It'sss okay, Kag-me," Cheryl whispered as she reached a hand out to Kagome's wilted shoulders. "Maybe Trev-r could not be sssaved, but Jer-my is not lossst yet."

Kagome glanced up but couldn't manage even the bleakest of smiles right now. Sesshoumaru had provided a pin for Jeremy as soon as she'd mentioned the new boy in the hospital. He hadn't tried to dissuade her from getting attached knowing it would be pointless. She cared for these children, some would argue too much. "If I'd just dug into his history a little faster, done a little more research I could have saved him."

"Maybe," Cheryl studied the med student carefully. The spider woman was set to go under the knife on Monday as the tumor that had brought her here had been deemed safe to cut out two days ago. "But even if you had found an anssswer sssooner, would the sssolution have been implemented?"

Kagome would have had to prove the validity of her theory before being allowed to test it on a living child even if that child's parental guardians were willing to let her do it. So the answer was "probably not," Kagome sighed. "I probably won't be in time for even Jeremy whose symptoms are as much a result of his youkai half as his human."

"Then it is not for you to feel thisss guilt," Cheryl insisted mildly. "You are to sssimply be there to hold his hand as he letsss go. Your job is to sssupport his parentsss as they mourn their little one and ensure that the next time they are brave enough to try, you can prevent thisss problem from ending in thisss way."

"Higurashi Kagome," A voice growled from the other end of the hall. Kagome and her companion turned to look at the caller only for the Japanese exchange student to gasp in surprise.

"Souta," she couldn't believe her eyes. There was no reason for her little brother to visit her now. He'd been angry at their last conversation and refused every call from her since. "What are you doing here?"

Souta was getting married to a woman she'd never met in another month. Kagome had thought she could go, but with Trevor's life ending and Jeremy on the line after that, she'd had to change her mind. Souta could get married and live without her. Jeremy might not be saved by her immediate involvement in his treatment, but she was certain he had no chance without her. It was an unhappy decision, but somebody's life and death situation outweighed a celebration that didn't require her presence a world away. Souta had been angry, too angry to speak to her ever since she'd called to rescind her RSVP.

Besides, there would be another hanyou after Jeremy and another after that. The more time she took now, the more Hanyou would lose their lives.

"Someone you know?" the quiet spider questioned gently. Kagome never had the chance to reply because Souta was clearly still pissed, though why or how he'd made the long distance flight was still unknown. There was no money at the shrine to support such a frivolous trip if all he wanted to do was yell at her. She'd rather see her mother, or even listen to her grandfather gripe at her in person than put up with an angry Souta right now.

"You're such a selfish bitch!" her little brother snarled at her like a slap to the face when he came in range. Cheryl sucked her teeth disapprovingly beside her. "You're over here doing whatever the hell you want without caring about anyone but yourself. You haven't been home since you left and the one time you say you're going to finally come back where you belong, you cancel your plans like its some unimportant chore we're imposing on you-"

His aim had been to inspire guilt in what he obviously believed was an uncaring, spoiled, partying princess. Kagome wasn't certain where he'd gotten that impression. Kagome hadn't gone home since the money supporting her here wasn't hers. There were strings attached to it and her sponsors and mentors and benefactors were only slightly more diligent about keeping her buried in books than Kagome was herself. Souta's nuptials had been the first time they'd been willing to let her go home. The first time in almost five years. It was Kagome who'd torn herself up coming to the decision that she just couldn't let Trevor or Jeremy die alone, with no hope of staving it off simply so she could go toast her brother and his bride.

She couldn't make merry and pretend a small innocent child wasn't dying. She'd hoped he wouldn't really care or notice. They rarely talked in the last few years. He was too busy living his life to bother sticking around long enough to do more than shout a greeting over his shoulder as he walked out the door. All the information she had about his antics and relationships and school activities came from their mother and Grandfather's extensive grumbling. Sometimes that upset her or annoyed her, he was her brother, but she'd never held it against him. He was out living his life and she was doing the same. She'd thought he had accepted her choices and understood the seriousness of her efforts. Apparently not.

Souta's harangue was abusive and belittling. Clearly he believed this one-time event in his life was more important that anything that could possibly be going on in hers. Kagome tried not to feel betrayed by this evidence that he believed _he_ should be more important to her than living her own life. Their mother's support and understanding was not making an appearance in his temper or words. It seemed he'd never bothered to learn just what she was over here doing with her time.

Kagome turned from his tirade when the shrill screech of a flat line on Trevor's heart monitor reached her through the closed door beside her. Her own heart seizing in panicked dismay as she suddenly forgot her little brother was hurling hateful words in her face. She was supposed to be in there holding the little hanyou's hand!

Without another thought and an efficient number of steps she left her angry brother and her spider companion behind and pressed into the crowded room in time to hear the re-initiation of Trevor's unsteady heart beat. A fleeting after thought crossed her mind that maybe she shouldn't leave Cheryl to her brother's temper was dismissed as she waded through people and equipment to reach her designated spot to keep vigil. Though she could clearly hear Souta and Cheryl out in the hall beyond the closed doors, Kagome didn't spare them much of her attention. Trevor was all important right now and that was how it should be.

"You get back here!" Souta yelled angry at having been summarily dismissed without having his full say and forcing her to admit the error of her ways. She was supposed to stand there and bow her head contritely before completely capitulating to his demands. "I wasn't finished!"

"Get over yourssself you foolish brat!" Cheryl yelled back, shocking the young man into sullen silence. He was surprised she could understand him, or that she'd yelled back in Japanese. "A sssmall boy is in that room dying and you think she should ssstand out here while you throw accusationsss at her becaussse she isn't willing to kill sssomeone to attend your every whim?"

"She doesn't have to kill anybody to attend my wedding damn it!" Souta growled back. "But you can't tell me a mere med student is so important as to be unable to spare a couple weeks for a visit home after so many years!"

The spider flicked her dark eyes closed in a quick blink as she considered the young male in front of her briefly. "A mere med ssstudent?" her voice was soft but incredulous. Her Japanese flawless but for her refusal to assume the speech patterns used by females made her speech more powerful and stubborn. Her vocabulary was distinctly masculine and likely done on purpose. Most youkai learned a dozen languages over the span of their lives simply by exposure. "You downplay her importance to offssset your own guilt for projecting your ssselfishness on to her." The spider grabbed the impetuous youngest Higurashi and pushed him flush against the door to Trevor's room next to the narrow window. The thump caused by her force caused Mrs. Raymond to jump a little in surprise as she'd heard very little over the semi-constant strain of the instruments supporting the life of her son for hours.

Trevor could clearly be seen, as could Kagome as she held his tiny hand across from his mother, silent tears bathed her face. The ventilator struggled against his hanyou body to force breath into his fluid filled lungs. His cherubic face was pale in his sleep, the hollows of his cheeks standing out starkly against the bleached white of the linens under his head and pulled up to his chin. His horns had finally come in, poking out from under his unruly white bangs. Every once in a while, he got enough air to kick off the blankets in his unconscious discomfort exposing silver hooves briefly before his mother or his favorite nurse Oscar smoothed the blanket back into place.

"Who is that kid?" Souta was moved to ask in curiosity. It wasn't every day he saw someone that close to death, and never one so very young. He knew in the abstract way of knowing that it happened. Knew that kids died everyday, but he'd never had it right in front of him before and couldn't completely believe what his eyes were showing him.

"His name is Trev-r. He turned five lassst week," Cheryl informed him pointedly stressing the child's youth. "He went back on the ventilatorsss two daysss later and it wasss accepted that his end would come sssometime thisss week. He's never been on the ventilatorsss this long and his youkai half fightsss more as time goes on. His heart hasss flat-lined three timesss today." The spider continued, "and Kag-me has been keeping vigil for the lassst three daysss as sssoon as her required roundsss are done. To the hanyou here, she is all important."

Cheryl had also been keeping vigil, in her way. She hadn't slept much, though she did return to her room every night and sit in the dark, aural sensors perked for that final moment. The lingering weakness brought on by her cancer treatment limited her ability to keep watch over Trevor's final hours. The boy was undeserving of his fate, proof that life wasn't fair, but also proof that Cheryl would live better because she wasn't part human to any degree.

"But he's dying now," Souta blurted out only half aware of how uncouth it was to point out the imminent demise of a five year old boy of any species. Clearly, if Trevor was dying now, no matter how sad that was, his death would not preclude his sister's traveling home for the originally planned visit. This was still all important in his mind despite proof that Kagome had not been staying away from home just to live life however she wanted. "My Wedding is next month."

"And you do not think the other hanyou here dessserve as much as Trev-r?" Cheryl glared her black eyes at him. "Jer-my is younger than Trev-r. He is jussst as fragile and jussst as prone to death. You think she could leave him to celebrate your nuptialsss when his life hangsss in the balance."

"There's another one?" Souta asked weakly. He was used to seeing hanyou run around and besting all the pure humans of his acquaintance. Hell Inuyasha would taunt anybody who proved slower or weaker than he was. Granted he was nicer about it than the bullies that had driven the inu hanyou into the Sanctuary family fold, but he still did it. With lots of yelling and proof of his robust health. He knew the statistics, sort of, but had never seen proof of them first hand. It was one thing to hear the numbers and another to experience their reality in person.

"Surely you did not think there wasss only one hanyou in the world," Cheryl turned away from the window, Souta and the pain behind that door. Kagome was certain the spider woman was tired and should be resting. It was encouraged that Cheryl resume her natural form in the evenings though she had been warned against using her spinnerets until after the surgery and subsequent healing. She could not drop the human facade in the middle of the hallway though, not without causing unnecessary disruption.

"Both have Cranesss," Cheryl added as she wandered back to her room leaving him to his own devices. Cheryl didn't know who this "Souta" was to Kagome specifically, but she had to know he was someone close since the younger female had left off a suffix and the male in question was angry she wouldn't attend his wedding to someone else.

Kagome did not deserve to be labeled selfish by anyone, whether she felt guilt at not being able to go home in all these years or not. Not when every sacrifice she made was to preserve the life of children who have no other chance. The miko's mother had been accepting and supportive. Even Sesshoumaru had understood the need for her continued absence from his life despite his instincts clamoring other things at him. Kagome could normally defend herself from all naysayers and disbelievers without a problem, but this was Souta. He'd blind-sided her with his rancor and refusal to accept that there were more important things in the world than a single ceremony in which she held no part beyond witness.

Surely Souta had enough witnesses without Kagome in the form of their mother and grandfather and whomever attended from the bride's side. She didn't know much about the ceremony beyond that and quite honestly didn't need to know about it. Wouldn't have cared to hear about it right now with Trevor's limp hand hanging from hers. It hurt so much to know that Trevor would never wake up and giggle at his mother's teasing; that he would never express his certainty that Kagome would save him. There would be no more naked goat hanyou chasing through the ward, scraping his hooves over the smooth tile and catching on the black traction strips laid down for his safety.

Death happened occasionally in Oncology, with such harsh treatment plans and a fairly aggressive malady to contend with it was expected. None of them were like this. None were falling into the arms of death simply because their genetics weren't fully understood yet.

Again Kagome silently begged the universe why? Why hadn't someone stepped up to fix this problem before now, why was it only now, why only her?

"She gave them Paper Cranes?" Souta breathed as if suddenly understanding the gravity of the situation and Kagome's commitment to these two children. Souta sighed like a set of damaged bellows as if in resignation as he followed the arachnid down the hall to her apparent room.

"They are not made of paper, though the shape is the same," Kagome heard Cheryl confirm distantly. "She has them made by someone very skilled who does it for free. Someone who clearly supports her more than you do." Yes, Sesshoumaru supported more than her own brother. It made her want to weep more than just the weakening boy trapped in his bed and whatever dreams could be supported under a lack of oxygen and his body's fight with the artificial efforts to keep him breathing and alive.

Kagome hoped that when Trevor went it would just be a shift in dreams, a fading from one imagined reality to another. She hoped, as she squeezed his hand, that he felt no pain or if he did that he wasn't aware of it.

Hours later, as their vigil swept past them in terrible minutes and painful breaths punctuated by the false lungs on the ventilator, Trevor's father burst into the room. It was only the second time that Kagome met the human man that had fathered the boy in the bed. He looked exhausted and terrified to have missed his chance to kiss his boy with love and fear and pain. The sound of the machines calmed him slightly. He was taller than Kagome, but shorter than Mrs. Raymond and his build looked rather starved from the stress of supporting his son's hospital needs. Kagome had no doubt that while his body might find relief in its struggles to keep healthy after this, the man would rather work himself to death than watch Trevor slip off into the unknown oblivion before him.

Mr. Raymond stumbled past the various chairs and medical equipment to reach the ghostly son he'd sired and nearly collapsed into the bed as he missed some low protruding base. He paid it no mind as he leaned in and hugged the boy as best he could without dislodging something important. He whispered something low and rumbled in the tiny ear nearest him before drawing back.

Kagome had no idea what he said, but Trevor let go for the last time right after his father regained his footing and rose from the white linens to hug his wife and mate, wet-faced with sadness and regret. The high-pitched sound of the final flat-line screamed their loss until the sound faded from Kagome's stunned ears. The nurse Oscar reached out to shut it off after it was clear Trevor's heart wouldn't restart on its own this time.

The Silence afterward was more deafening than the beeping and breathing ventilators had been before. Kagome stood up numb, her fingers loosened their hold on Trevor's hand without her conscious direction. She maneuvered her way from the crowded room in a cloud of lingering silence that hushed even the Raymond's sounds of mourning. Her ears were stuffed up with the loss of Trevor's bright smile and shy laughter.

She wanted to run to Jeremy and hug him until she felt better, but doing so would harm the two year old hanyou bear cub. Without being able to follow that direction she was directionless, stuck in a fog of unfocused thoughts and dripping tears. Kagome couldn't seem to find a sensible act to make or any desire to do anything.

She was in such a state she didn't realized she had wandered down the hall to Cheryl's room until the door jumped open to show Souta standing inside it with his hand on the knob and Cheryl resting inside. The bulk of her arachnid body pushed down into the springs of the mattress, six of her eight legs hung off the sides and the last two crossed over the foot board to rest under her still mostly human head. Under normal circumstances Spider youkai sleep in a web of their own making, easing the weight off any one point on her body, but that would require Cheryl risk going against doctors orders. And the Arachnid had been very good about their directives since meeting Trevor. His imminent demise had highlighted just how much Cheryl wanted to live.

Kagome had no idea what they'd been talking about to keep her angry brother in close proximity to a spider bigger than him despite his long-standing fear, but her curiosity wasn't even roused by the situation. Trevor was gone and while Cheryl probably would have offered her the comfort of being able to mourn as violently as she wanted without causing offense to the now childless parents, Souta was a wild-card Kagome just didn't have the emotional wherewithal to navigate. If he was still angry and started yelling at her about selfishness and not attending his wedding she would break into a thousand pieces unlikely to ever be whole again.

At the very least their relationship would never recover. That bastion of love and family would fracture with his loss. Now would be an awful to time for that to happen, but Kagome had learned that events happened when they would and not always when you were ready for them.

"He's gone?" Cheryl asked from the bed and Kagome nodded wetly for confirmation.

"I'm sorry Kagome," Souta apologized gently. "I'm sorry I didn't realize what I was asking and I'm sorry the kid didn't make it." Finally Kagome's grief broke through and she let out a loud wail as her little brother pulled her into a bigger hug than she could remember him capable of giving. He dragged her from the hall and closed the door to Cheryl's room, protecting her from prying eyes and judging glares.

Cheryl heaved herself up from the bed and walked on her spindly legs to the embracing siblings. Loosely she hugged the pair offering a slightly older more maternal element to the comfort surrounding Kagome. She was in need of a little comfort at the loss too. The death of a child hit everyone involved hard and a spider youkai who had never been a mother was no exception.


	33. Growing Pains

Bad/Sad things happen again. Sesshoumaru calls in the cavalry! Which isn't really giving anything away yet again. You have no idea who the cavalry is yet. Hope you enjoy this latest installment of _Paper Cranes_!

In the meantime, I'll be working on more for later! I mean around my job of course...and my noisy new roommate.

Calendar: May.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Growing Pains**

Sesshoumaru propped his left hip against Nonny's counter as his golden eyes watched her maneuver about the underground kitchen. A counter top grill sat two feet from him, filling the air with the sizzling of asparagus cooking. It was the only way Willem Maxwell would eat the vegetable and the only way Sesshoumaru had ever tasted it.

Since learning of his mate's humanity, Sesshoumaru had been paying closer attention to the mechanics and planning that went into feeding a human being. Their dietary needs for maintaining good health was important to him because once he had his mate back with him he wanted her to stick around, active and healthy for as long as possible. His youki would work with her reiki towards that end, but every little bit would help as she would say and he wanted to be sure he was qualified to assist on this front.

So far he had simply noticed a greater need for vegetables than was necessary for his own dietary requirements. Portions were important, or so he'd been able to glean as was the schedule meals were set on. He'd been doing some reading on his own, but the Hughes had been discussing Trish's needs explicitly, worrying over her nutrient intake and the lack of protein she was getting. The little girl avoided most meat offerings which was hardly an uncommon behavior.

His distant mate told him that children were largely selective eaters, known for peculiar eating habits and his prior experience with the tsunami survivors at the Higurashi shrine supported that. She'd suggested not pressing Trish to eat more than she was hungry for and supplying healthy options to avoid vitamin deficiencies, but told him that only the child's grandparents could really decide how to handle the little girl's diet regularly. He was just an outsider that Trish felt most comfortable with. It was to the child's benefit that he avoid offering censure about behaviors that didn't harm anyone else. That he had so far was probably why the small girl was so attached to him.

She'd grown so attached in fact, that he'd been required to bring her home overnight on more than one occasion because she wouldn't let go of his hair. He was unable to remove his silver locks once in her grip, her tiny fingers firmly interlaced with the loops of the long braid. Alma still plaited his hair and finished it by wrapping the whole length of it about his head. When he left the workshop, the first thing he did was let down the crown to insure his brother never had the chance to see his hair looking so feminine. If Trish was anywhere near when the trailing end came down, it was inevitable that the child would grab it.

The first time he'd taken her home with him, trailing behind him on the silver cord that was his hair, Inuyasha and Kikyou had been surprised. Inuyasha had naturally ribbed him for being on a leash controlled by a little girl. He'd been so brusque and brash Trish had initially hidden behind the bigger inu in nervous fright. Kikyou had yelled at her hanyou for his deplorable manners which equally frightened Trish, but Sesshoumaru didn't say anything. Inuyasha's teasing wasn't harmful or malicious and Kikyou's scolding was only minimally threatening. Sesshoumaru didn't tense up. Tension would communicate to Trish that he was nervous too and he wasn't. Neither of his pack members would attack her or him. They were safe, Trish just wasn't used to them yet.

Inuyasha took some getting used to.

But Trish was resilient and, not unlike his mate's childhood friend, soon found herself so exasperated with the hanyou's determination to bring her out of her shell that she started talking out of shear frustration after that first night. When her words started to surface, it became apparent that their absence was due to a slight speech abnormality and the likely forms of criticism she had received for it as a result. Kikyou had rewarded her bravery in shouting back at Inuyasha by breaking out some sweet fruit and whipped cream.

Inuyasha had grumbled but celebrated too and Trish had loosened up around the pack after that.

The Hughes depended on Sesshoumaru to look after her without worry or fear when he managed to return their previously mute granddaughter with careful but abundant words pouring out of her mouth.

Such was what had happened today.

Sesshoumaru still visited Nonny and Maxwell-sensei once a week when his apprentice duties were not required. Nonny would cook for him and Maxwell questioned his progress closely before trying to wangle the key to the storeroom off the inu. He liked spending time with the old couple and Nonny's advice was impeccable for things his mate couldn't help him with. Such as his growing concern over his mate's mental health. Maxwell-sensei was conveniently occupied elsewhere and unlikely to overhear the conversation.

Today he'd been asked to bring Trish along so her grandparents could hold serious and private conversations with her tutors. She had decided upon first meeting that the gruff old man was fascinating and safe in childlike judgment. She was somewhere trailing behind Maxwell-sensei, asking him millions of questions and absolutely enthralled by his blustery answers. Her grandparents had asked Sesshoumaru to take her for the day so they could confer with the reading tutor and speech therapist they had employed for their Trish's benefit. School was soon to start back up again and there were topics being discussed that neither human wanted the sensitive girl to hear.

There was concern over whether Trish was ready to rejoin her age group or if she would be better off being held back. Her reading was improving and her speech had already been fairly well handled before the coach stepped in to help with more strategies to control the pronunciation and pacing of her words. Home schooling had been suggested as a possibility and while Sesshoumaru just knew it would further delayed his own training in Alma's specialty, he'd not weighed in with his opinion. No matter what decision Trish's grandparents came to, the child would need support and it was better if she had it from someone who hadn't decided her future for her. Sesshoumaru could handle disappointment for a cause so much more important.

"So you think your mystery mate might need some outside help?" Nonny asked as she picked up her newly sharpened knife to slice the tender beef into thin strips for sashimi.

"Hn," Sesshoumaru refrained from crossing his arms. He didn't particularly like discussing his fears with anyone, but his mate was important and he'd been unable to come up with a viable solution on his own. "She has recently lost a patient with another following that way any day now. She was required to miss a family function to tend this latest boy, Jeremy, and her brother accused her of selfishness when she retracted her RSVP to this family thing. She hasn't been home in years."

"That is the making of some serious stress," Nonny observed carefully. "But it doesn't necessarily mean she requires counseling. She is talking about it with you, right?"

"This Sesshoumaru feels there are some things she hasn't felt comfortable discussing with me," He felt compelled to answer. The female he was bonded to had never actually discussed her feelings concerning their situation with him. She spoke of her fear for her family when the tsunami hit Japan. When she was ill, her general irritation was as much her health as a reaction to him. She spoke her frustration with Brett's break up trauma and prolonged recovery. She'd spoken of anger with various different people. But never of her feelings about him or his actions.

"Such as?" Nonny encouraged him to elaborate. Her neko tendency to demand all details was occasionally irritating, even if it was warranted. She couldn't advise him without all the pertinent information, he knew that and her prompting was understandable. He did not talk willingly about difficult topics and his mate's emotional vulnerabilities and needs that he couldn't meet fell into that category. Any inadequacy or deficiency on Sesshoumaru's part would especially as it pertains to pack and mate.

"Such as the topic of this Sesshoumaru," he declared firmly.

The cat blinked at him in surprise, "You think you're a reason for her to seek out a therapist?"

Sesshoumaru had never related the tale of how he and his mate had come to be mated without him knowing her name and he never wanted to. But he was aware that his mate might need some help facing down the situation he'd put her in. He had finally realized that the method of their coming together had likely caused her some psychological damage. It had been years, but he didn't think she'd ever properly addressed it and he feared the lack of focus on her experience and the feelings it engendered was what was making her current situations so much harder for her to handle. Granted, he believed she needed the counseling just to get through the grief over losing Trevor only to shortly lose Jeremy too. They were babies and it was disheartening that they died so young, but their loss was greater given the fact he knew his mate couldn't help but see in them and their parents herself and future children of her heart and body.

She was magnificent and wonderful and faltering. As Trish would say in childish fashion, his mate was wobbling like an uneven table. The temporary solution was to stuff something under the uneven legs and otherwise ignore it. The proper and permanent solution was to correct the problem that had rendered the table unstable. For a person, ignoring a problem and bottling it up only made things worse down the line. The proper fix was to let it out, to analyze it properly and find ways to channel the energies into more positive productive paths. And since she was proving incapable of finding effective methods to do that on her own, Sesshoumaru felt that it was best for her to go somewhere to receive helpful guidance from an outside party.

"Right now she is drowning," Sesshoumaru failed to answer Nonny's question properly and hoped she wouldn't notice. "She keeps lamenting her lack of faster progress as Jeremy's condition worsens. Last week he broke bones in his spine just trying to sit up. He broke his arm when they tried roll him onto his side. One of his ribs snapped on a yawn. They're losing him and she can't stop berating herself for not finding a proper, viable solution to implement for him. I fear how she will handle his actual death."

Nonny's eyes were glassy and the scent of saline poisoned the air with her reaction to the harsh realities of a small child that he'd unceremoniously shared in her kitchen. Her preparations had ceased in the shock of his words. Sesshoumaru should have had more tact and thought a little more about who he revealed these particulars to. Nonny had borne a hanyou son. His life had been short because of war rather than illness, but she'd nursed her boy through more than his fair share of that torment too. Dropping the torment of another hanyou child in her lap likely brought to mind her own losses and hardship.

Sesshoumaru never wanted to hurt or pain either of the Maxwells but he apparently could be insensitive about anybody else's feelings when he worried for his mate. Not that it would have been appropriate to give out the details of Jeremy's deteriorating health like that anyway. No one wanted to believe children could die and no one wanted the reality of it waved around in the midst of their comfortable little worlds. It wasn't proof of their insensitivity so much as proof of mass denial.

Jeremy's body never stopped corroding his bones, increasingly compromising their structural integrity until the bones snapped under the boy's own weight. And he cried in pain every time. He was afraid and didn't know what was going on beyond his parent's tears and strained smiles. He was so young, younger than Trevor and couldn't even talk about his fears or ask questions. Thinking about the little half-bear was agonizing because some where in his future, there might be a half inu with similar problems for Sesshoumaru.

"I'm sorry," Sesshoumaru apologized and ran one clawed hand over his face. Perhaps he was the one who needed therapy. "She's hurting and I can't be there. I'm sorry."

Nonoka swallowed uncomfortably. "Is it like her reaction at Christmas when she met her sponsor's grandchildren?"

Sesshoumaru looked at her sharply, he'd forgotten that conversation so long ago. "This is worse as those children were not her patients. She wasn't expected to help give diagnosis or research possible reasons or solutions for their condition. Trevor and Jeremy were her first hanyou and one is already dead and the other will soon follow." The old feline nodded her understanding. "There is one thing more," he decided to add. "She is human. She sees our future in the lives of these children and their parents."

"Oh god," Nonny gasped in sympathy, she knew that path and fully understood. "But surely there are others around her to offer support and-"

"In recent months her focus has been almost entirely on the hanyou boys. Few friendships lasted beyond her last disastrous social trip to a neighboring city where her host tried to trap her into a contracted mating against her inclination or ability." Sesshoumaru couldn't help but cut her off. "The few ties that remain are as equally swept up in these events or involved with other demanding situations. All of her time is spent in the hospital or studying her texts in her private quarters. Her sponsors are busy trying to find a place to set up her future medical facilities and rustling up political support and appropriate funds."

"What about her family?" the cat had to inquire. She knew his female had family and it was inconceivable that support couldn't be gained from that direction.

"Her brother was flown in for a visit just in time for Trevor's death, but before he could get over himself enough to ask or learn about her current situation he blasted her for not coming home. He quickly corrected his attitude to offer her a week of familial comfort," but his mate had suffered damage that her little brother had proven incapable of properly correcting. Sesshoumaru wished her well-meaning sponsors and mentors had either limited their gracious offer to pay for the family to visit his mate to just her mother rather than the whole family, regardless of the matriarch's inability to make the trip. That brat had caused more harm than good. Accusing his mate of selfishness. He conveniently ignored how he might have done the same once upon a time. "Now there is no one to offer real tangible comfort, just this Sesshoumaru's voice through a phone. Same as her family."

"You'd be surprised how much comfort can be derived from a voice on the phone," Nonny drawled, trying to offer him comfort when all he could think of was the lack of comfort being received by his mate.

"The point," Sesshoumaru growled, "was that she needs more. And she needs a true outlet to help regain her emotional balance before she topples completely."

"Well, there are certainly a number of people who think that everybody could use a little therapy. At least the sort where you do all the talking and the therapist just listens until asked for a solution or suggestion," the old cat commented. "It certainly can't hurt, but how would she pay for such a thing? All of her effort," and therefore her money, "is being put into her work and her future."

"How much do you think a good therapist would cost?" Sesshoumaru asked in concern. He had a little money set aside, surplus from the pack allowance since the alpha was still sending funds to pay tuition and living expenses. Generally, he set what wasn't used aside intending to return the funds or hold them in trust for an emergency. But he felt no guilt in using those funds to pay for anything his mate needed. However, he couldn't afford prolonged extravagant expenditures without alerting his father to the fiscal drain on the pack's coffers. He always returned a significant portion of his living allowance, even when he'd been drinking himself stupid and sleeping with whatever caught his fancy.

So far his mate's drain on his allowance was miniscule, less than his art had been. But he'd been careful not to use the money sent for his tuition since there would be no records of his achievements in various subjects sent on to his alpha at the end of each term. Lacking proof of attendance but using the funds would raise questions that would be difficult to answer.

"It would depend on how often she went, how much help she needs and whether she goes to a medicating type or not," Nonny offered smartly for it was the general youkai opinion that humans and their various doctors relied too heavily on chemical solutions to problems that could be solved in less dangerous ways.

"Hn," Sesshoumaru considered her words. "This Sesshoumaru doubts she would seek out aid from anyone likely to-" he stopped abruptly when his phone rang. She was calling. It could not be good news.

Sesshoumaru pulled the phone out on the first ring and without glancing to Nonny for permission he answered it knowing full well the neko would hear everything. "Mate?"

There was a long, belabored pause where he could hear her panting for breath and he doubted very much it was from any physical exertion. "He's gone," she managed to gasp out on a barely restrained sob. Sesshoumaru's heart fell to the floor as he staggered back against the wall before his knees gave out. He slid to the floor uncaring that Nonny witnessed his momentary weakness. "It happened this afternoon," she continued weakly, tearing him to pieces with each breathy word. "The bones of his skull just...I'll never forget the sound. I heard it! I heard it go," and the battle was lost with her tears.

Sesshoumaru hated listening to her cry, knowing that she needed to be held and comforted and knowing he couldn't fulfill that need. "The bond mate," he gruffly reminded, his voice rough with emotions of his own but needing her to open communication so his youki could reach out to her and hold her as he couldn't.

"His parents were in the room," she continued even as the bond broke open and his youki flooded in her direction, offering an aura of strength and healing when physical closeness was what was needed. "Oh god! They were there when the bones broke!"

"Then Jeremy had the comfort of their closeness until the very end," Sesshoumaru offered gently. "He felt his papa's youki brushing against his senses and his mother's scent in his nose to give him comfort," for even half bears could scent out people in a space as small as a hospital room. "He could hear his mother humming her soft tunes and his father rumbling along with the words." His mate had shared the couple's habits in the long waiting hours sequestered in their son's room after the day's tests and doctors and nurses had swept through leaving hopelessness in their wake. Hopelessness and a lone woman trying to establish a viable method of helping half-blooded children medically when they need it. One who wasn't there yet.

His mate had kept vigil for Jeremy as she had for Trevor. She'd worked tirelessly, endlessly until she was worn to a frazzle even though there was no hope in saving the half bear as there hadn't been for the half goat. Her dedication was another reason he was worried. It was admirable, her steadfast efforts to correct this flaw in their world, but obsession corrupted balance as easily as emotional upheaval and natural disasters.

Eventually, her breathing evened out a little and she regained a smidgeon of control. "He's gone. And I-I was cruel to his parents. I broke down and interrupted their mourning because I hadn't saved him," she gulped in a quavering voice he could only assume was laced with shame. "They had to comfort me when all they should have been thinking about was comforting each other about losing their little boy. I'm terrible-"

"You are not terrible," Sesshoumaru couldn't refrain from breaking in. "You are human. Perhaps the timing wasn't ideal, but life happens when it will and we break under the strain when our stamina runs out rather than when it's convenient. You broke, but it is likely they won't even remember much detail from today. Anything beyond the loss of their son will likely be a blur. It is likely that you were only a slight distraction from their pain, a moment to dispel the shock of a pain so sudden and so close."

"I hope so," her words were morose. "I'd hate to think I made things worse for them."

"Mate," Sesshoumaru added softly. "It's impossible for you to make the death of their son harder as it is equally impossible for you to make it easier. This loss will haunt them, and it won't be any easier for the anticipation leading up to it. They will need to find some way to reconcile themselves to this reality in which their boy is no longer with them. It will take time and a lot of help, but hopefully they can do it. And when instinct or inclination leads them to try again, you'll be better equipped to help prevent a future loss."

"Yes, yes, time," she huffed disdainfully. "That's what everyone says. Time will fix this, time will prevent that, all the while time runs out for the ones I want to help."

"Are you at home?" he asked gently.

"I'm getting there," she sighed. "Emily practically shoved me out the door before heading home herself. Jewel's been having trouble in the summer program at the community center she goes to while Emily works. Apparently word got around about her familial status. She's rambunctious enough to defend her own honor with violence. I think she's on her second suspension since the summer started."

"Then this Sesshoumaru suggests that upon arrival home and after eating something, that you take a long hot bath, soaking until the water starts to cool beyond comfort before tumbling into bed. You need sleep mate, keeping vigil is tiring work." His voice rumbled mildly with his concern, worried she would stubbornly refuse his advice not because she didn't want to do it, but because she was contrary enough to refuse because it was suggested.

She was tired and if nothing else would benefit from the sleep.

He heard her sigh in a swift gust that blew across the speaker in a puff he could almost feel. "It sounds like the only obtainable heaven to be achieved on earth," came the words of acquiescence.

"There are other pleasures to be had, mate," Sesshoumaru responded to the saddened note in her voice.

"Don't even start," she warned firmly.

"That wasn't what this Sesshoumaru meant, mate," He argued as Nonoka snickered three feet away having returned to slicing beef in the thin slices before moving to take the asparagus off the heat. He really hadn't meant what his mate was implying. As great as sex and sexual culmination was, there _were_ other pleasures to be had in this life. The Triumph of success after a struggle. The joy of a child's first words either from birth or from newly born confidence. The sudden reality of establishing new independence from a previous controlling situation. There were pleasures that couldn't even be put into words. "Call your mother and ask her what pleasures she found in life after she lost your father. Certainly they were not all related to sex, else she would have found another partner to achieve it."

He was getting a little tired of her continued assumption that all the pleasure he received from their relationship was sexual. Sesshoumaru enjoyed the conversation, hearing about her day, bantering with her. He enjoyed the peek into a perception very different from his own and the knowledge that no matter how much he learned there was still more to be discovered. He considered any pleasure derived from his art as coming from her because without her, the inu never would have explored his creative abilities. The solutions he suggested to her when she expressed difficulty or excessive stresses were not all carnal either.

Granted, he did want to jump her bones. He was male, inu and mated to the woman. But he'd grown enough to acknowledge that she was more than just her body and he enjoyed intimacy with every bit of her. Instinct drove him to breed, affection drove him to care for more than that.

"You're right," she acknowledge wearily. "I would call her, but that family thing was today and nobody will answer the phone, not that I expect them too," added glumly.

"Leave the bond open, I will try to assist your sleep when the time comes," he offered before they dissolved the phone connection so she could seek out the things she needed to recover from exhaustion induced semi-hysteria.

"I can see-" Nonny began before he cut her off again with a hand before dialing another number. He'd never used it before, but Sesshoumaru felt the situation called for desperate measures.

The line rang twice before being picked up. "Hello? Who is this?"

"Hn, Brett-san," Sesshoumaru answered without delivering his name. His mate's roommate had never learned Sesshoumaru's name and he intended to keep it that way. The inu's fame was not so great in North America, but his name was known.

"Mr. Sexy Voice!" the ebullient male enthused.

"Who?" came another male voice in the background on Brett's side.

"Superwoman's beau," came the explanation. Trust Brett to identify his mate without use of names. Sesshoumaru couldn't help but smile to himself. He wasn't certain if he ever wanted to meet the man in person, but he was thankful for him all the same.

"Oh," came a female voice Sesshoumaru didn't recognize, "the mystery man."

"What can I do for you, Mr. Aural Cake?"

"Superwoman is in need of friendly faces," Sesshoumaru answered. "I cannot make the trip and her family is unavailable."

Brett turned serious and the change was noticeable in his tone. "What's the situation?"

"She has just lost her second patient within the last thirty days. She is not taking it well," he answered evenly.

"We're not yet responsible for patients-"

"They were hanyou," Sesshoumaru cut him off. It was true that both med students weren't supposed to be responsible for patients yet. But his mate was a special case because of her goals.

"Crap!" Brett grumbled. There was no arguing whether the female would take responsibility for them whether it was officially hers or not. "How young?"

"The first had just turned five, the second was two. He went today," Sesshoumaru answered abruptly. Brett inhaled sharply. "I am aware that you are as involved in your goings on as she is in hers, but you have better connections with others who might be able to make the trip and spend significant time with her."

"Well if you don't go, I will," the female voice declared firmly. "I'll move things around and make the trip. I have a passport somewhere."

"Alicia, aren't you competing for the open partner position at the firm?" Brett protested.

"If I don't get it now, I'll get it later," Alicia clearly thought Sesshoumaru's mate was more important.

"But-"

"Look Brett," She cut him off. "She did you a good turn when you desperately needed it. She called for help when it was clear she couldn't supply everything you needed and wore herself to frazzle before it came to that. She let you throw that presumptuous birthday party against her will and she didn't kill you when you interfered in her relationship after you finally got your act together. She needs help. I'm going."

"I'm going too," the male Sesshoumaru hadn't identified yet threw in with Brett's sister. "Term is coming to a close and I'm just a TA right now. I can arrange a sub for the last week or so and have the next several weeks to visit."

"Germaine," Brett began.

"I can get a hold of her littles and see if they can afford a visit too," Brett's still lover continued without answering Brett's call of his name. "The pack might have to make some special arrangements to let two of their own across the border, but the two wolves will probably insist on making the trip for her."

"Do you hear that, Mr. Sexy Voice," Alicia called out to Sesshoumaru from around the world. "We've got it covered. I can be there in a day or two. Germaine will come after that. Are you going to tell her?"

"You guys are crazy," Brett told them in loving admiration. "I'll head down as soon as my course requirements have been met. Don't tell Wonder woman, she needs the shock of good. A surprise like this will be better."

"Hn, It was the plan,"Sesshoumaru answered the group. "I'll try to keep her buoyant until the first of you get there."

"I'm packing as I speak and calling in a family emergency," Alicia called. "As soon as we hang up I'm going to make flight arrangements and force Brett to take me to the airport. I'll be state side and Superwoman bound within the next 24 hours without fail. I may even make it in time to escort her to the funeral. I'm sure she'll need the support there."

"Thank You," Sesshoumaru added before ending the call and glancing up at Nonny from the place he'd fallen to the floor.

"Perhaps rather than serious therapy, what she needs is a support group," the neko offered as she shakily knelt in front of him. "But I think, with good friends on the way, she'll hold out fine through the summer. Maybe they'll get her involved in a group before they have to leave her."

"Hn," Sesshoumaru hummed hopefully before leaning his head back in resignation. For now the situation with his mate would just have to be left alone. Being told to wait and see while hoping somebody else would know what she needed wasn't particularly comforting, but it was all that could be done.


	34. Eternal Spin

So, Kagome has finally had a meltdown. It was a long time coming. When you don't deal with things the badness percolates until it all boils over in a completely unrelated situation. Of course it was helped along by exhaustion and grief. Throw in a little thwarted determination and life gets a bit too much to take. She'll live with the help of good friends...and Sesshoumaru.

Calendar: July.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Eternal Spin**

Kagome struggled to smile warmly as Ginta worked to tighten the sheet corners under Emily's sharp eyes. Hakkaku was out by the cart stuffing the sheets they'd just removed from the bed down in the cart as Kagome brought out the used tray to clear and set in the proper cavity. The room they were working on had been Jeremy's. Despite the fact it now housed a new patient, a solemn, young human oncology patient with big dark eyes, she still thought of the hanyou who had died there.

It wasn't so bad working in Trevor's old room. The new tenant there was a teenage girl with a raucous personality and a dry sense of humor. But, Jeremy's successor wasn't different enough to avoid calling up the memory of his death every time she stepped into the room. She couldn't avoid recalling that traumatizing, terrible sound that had marked the sweet boy's final moments. It had been two months.

It occasionally amazed her how much could change in a relatively short amount of time. Two months ago today Jeremy had died in the room they were just cleaning. Two months ago she couldn't see clear of the sound and loss to remember that life moved on and her life with it. It had seemed so hopeless, so pointless to keep trying when she couldn't succeed with the one group of patients she had set out to save. She was too slow, ineffectual and those precious children had paid the price.

Quite honestly, Kagome could admit that his death and Trevor's before it had temporarily paralyzed her drive. That ultimate proof of failure had nearly derailed her in the moments she was closest to reaching goals that she desperately needed met. Goals other hanyou in the world needed her to achieve. Goals her hypothetical future children would benefit from if she ever managed to see the way forward. True, miko and youkai rarely bred easily or well, but that had all been established in a time far distant from this one. Kagome would hate to have to go through so much difficulty just to bring her child into the world and lose it so very quickly to some inane illness any pure-blooded child would get over.

Before Kagome could wallow too much in the self-pity her inadequacy had dredged up or allow the sickness her bleak future caused in her heart to cripple her further, Brett's sister Alicia had shown up at the door of her little guest house, sufficient luggage in tow for a long visit. Alicia had taken her in hand and seen her to the funeral, to her shifts at the hospital and even tricked Kagome into visiting a grief support group.

Kagome had almost made a scene when she'd realized just what she'd been duped into. The loss was too raw to want to talk about it, especially with perfect strangers, and she was doing fine getting through it on her own. Denial wasn't just a fairy tale made up for the benefit of liars. She hadn't wanted to be there. She didn't want to risk someone important thinking she was flawed or couldn't handle all the aspects of the job she's signed up for.

Kagome hadn't established a professional reputation yet and she didn't think attending any sort of counseling before she got into the real thick of things would look good. But then she had caught a glimpse of Trevor's favorite nurse, Oscar.

Oscar was a part of the group and had been attending since _before_ he was a nurse. The loss of Trevor hadn't led to him joining the group, an older loss had. It turned out that the original loss, the death of Oscar's younger brother and aunt in a car accident Oscar's senior year of high school had lead him to his current profession. But not until after several years of self-destructive behavior. He'd abused stimulants and depressants. Drank himself sick regularly and totaled two cars. He'd even dropped out of college. Twice. It had taken a good friend and his father tricking him into attending the support group before he'd managed to find a good track for his life. Once he'd worked through all of the prescribed healthy stages of grief. He'd gotten stuck on anger for a long time.

The second meeting she'd attended at Alicia's insistence (the lawyer had actually walked her in and sat next to her through the entire meeting), Kagome had found Connor and Gloria from pediatrics attending. Gloria had lost a lover and the added and repeated stress of the occasional child death in her ward hadn't helped her any after that. She loved kids, had wanted to have some with the lover she'd lost. Most days working pediatrics was what kept her living every day, but there were bad days. Days where the sight of the kids in her ward just seemed to rub salt in the old wound. Or days when a child came in who was terminally ill, been brought in too late, or showed signs of repeated parental abuse. Gloria had struggled to accept that there were people in the world who would not welcome the gift of a child or could take that gift for granted enough to neglect it.

Incidentally, Connor had started attending meetings in his second year of work as a nurse. He'd lost three patients in his care during that time and like most doctors and nurses, blamed himself, his lack of ability to notice _something_ that would have prevented the deaths. Gloria had brought him in, already a long term member of the group at that point. Only, it was revealed that Connor hadn't dealt with a previous loss at all, and it was making it harder to deal with the new ones.

The three had welcomed her in with warm smiles and sincere condolences, aware of what had driven her into their midst beyond the coercion of her escort. Thankfully, no one really pressured her to talk about it or to talk at all. They assured her that when she was ready, she would talk about it, either to one person or to a small group. In the meantime, just knowing that others suffered the same way she did and lived productive lives was comforting. They weren't stuck trying to work around the wound that seemingly bled eternally.

After about four weeks of meetings, Kagome had bumped into Cheryl in the hall coming from a cancer survivors group. Brett and Germaine were with her by then, relieving Alicia to return home. Their arrival also made it very clear that her difficulties had been relayed to her Canadian roommate and his family very clearly. The cavalry was arrived. Once the arachnid had realized there was a grief group being held in the same building at the same time, she had switched to their group instead. Cheryl claimed she made the change because the Cancer group had no other youkai and the humans treated her odd out of some version of arachnophobia.

Every week after group their expanded entourage and whatever guests had taken up company with Kagome would head out to a little diner for a meal and easy camaraderie. Sometimes it was a loud time of silliness and letting off steam. Sometimes their dinners were quiet and relaxed with very little talking and just comfortable being together. Occasionally, they would talk about experiences and losses that hadn't come out in their session. Mostly Kagome enjoyed listening. It made her feel a little better to know that other professionals had felt the way she did regardless of having a set treatment for the patients that came in. She had failed with two patients for which there was no known cure or medicinal fix. The others had lost family and patients that were either human or youkai, proving that it wasn't her that didn't prevent the loss of Trevor and Jeremy. It wasn't a result over some long buried dislike of hospitals ingrained after the the deaths she suffered as a child. It wasn't some subconscious self-satisfied laziness engendered by her success with Pepper.

It was life, for everything that lived would eventually stop living. Kagome could make it so that future hanyou might have a higher chance of surviving to adulthood and beyond, but she couldn't prevent death, so much as delay it. No matter how defeatist that sounded, it was also comforting. She wasn't kami. It was best she accept that now and rely on her friends and mate to sort her out whenever she forgot that.

Hakkaku glanced up and smiled at her before pulling her into a delicately supportive side ways hug, nuzzling his slightly rough cheek against her own. She was having a bit of difficulty letting others get that close. It made her tense. Part of it was her Japanese upbringing, but it had never been this bad before. Cheryl had observed it first, one night after their easy dinner when Brett and his lover were still in town.

Brett had always been prone to spontaneous hugging. Kagome had never been particularly fond of the habit, but she'd learned to accept it and anticipate it to a certain extent while they'd lived together. Ginta and Hakkaku's mannerisms were completely tame in comparison, but she'd apparently lost her tolerance for it since she'd lived alone. She tensed up without realizing it anytime somebody got too close. She even found difficulty reaching out to patients beyond the age of puberty, especially males.

The savvy spider suspected something beyond grief was bothering Kagome. Cheryl had told her so and offered to listen whenever the secret miko was ready to talk about that too. Nobody else had seemingly noticed and Kagome was trying to get back to the head space she'd been in while living with Brett. She was concerned that even if she did manage that feat it wouldn't be the success she thought it would be.

Ginta and Emily finished up with the housekeeping duties and the group moved down the hall.

A disdainful sniff sounded behind them drawing Kagome's attention to the disapproving expression of her littles' alpha on this trip. Ayame had disliked the would-be doctor from the start. Kagome hadn't understood why at first until Ginta had explained the redhead was promised to Kouga and had received nothing but static from the rude male for the last three years. Naturally, the female wolf blamed Kagome for it despite being told multiple times that Kagome didn't want the brat at all. What the other girl saw in that creep was beyond the miko's ken.

Hakkaku rolled his eyes to show Kagome what he thought of his temporary alpha's opinion. Neither male cared a whit what Ayame thought about Kagome and both had seen fit to inform their interim alpha of the fact. Multiple times. They two were the ones to see how Kagome had handled Kouga's overbearing and wrongfully possessive manner. They informed the female more than once that her views were unfounded and that Kagome had never wanted the claims or the wolf who made them. Ginta and Hakkaku both had explained to the chit that Kouga was a nitwit in his refusal to accept their "onee-chan" didn't want him and that Kagome already had a lover.

Ayame hadn't believed them without proof of scent drowning out Kagome's own. The she-wolf believed lovers could only be lovers if they were having sex. It was a seemingly common failing that had Kagome worried for the future of the world. As long as the soon-to-be ex-med student wasn't firmly committed with bonds to some other male that couldn't be refuted and the wolf could scent, Ayame believed that Kagome would naturally drop whoever she was dangling to be with Kouga. Ayame arrogantly believed that she had gotten the best alpha of her generation of wolves, that he was the best male to be had anywhere. Doubtless that meant that no other male would compare in the eyes of any female with a choice. Like Kouga, her opinion was the only one that could be right and anything else was firmly rejected as foolishness and lies. Kagome had been favored and verbally claimed for whatever reason which made her real competition that could not be trusted. There was no way Kagome could be a decent person in the female wolf's mind.

Ayame was the best female alpha to be had within their pack. That the one she wanted didn't want her was impossible without some seriously underhanded actions being taken by the female Kouga _did_ want. She didn't know what, she didn't know how and she didn't care why. In Ayame's eyes, Kagome was evil, a certifiable villain and the pack elders that allowed Ginta and Hakkaku to be around the future doctor were clearly taken in by the same things as Kouga. There was no other explanation.

So the she-wolf watched Kagome like a hawk, offering silent commentary over every move the secret miko made. Nearly every sound Ayame made in any situation was filled with disapproval of one sort or another. Their first days in town had been worse as the bitch's opinions were expressed more intrusively. Like Kouga, Ayame only seemed to have two volumes. Silent, which was always extremely temporary and marked by the need to breath in between words, and extremely loud. Every statement was an important declaration meant to be imparted to the world for the betterment of all.

Kagome couldn't help the small smile that covered her face at that thought. The two brats, male and female were made for each other they were so alike. Kagome could see their future now. They would be each others worst, best torment. Each would decide something that didn't precisely match the other's perception and staunchly refuse to envision that either could be wrong about what they viewed as correct. They would stubbornly dig in on their side of the argument or disagreement and staunchly refuse to consider the other was right about anything that conflicted with any part of their own view. They would fight constantly.

The only downside Kagome could see, besides the reality that neither would be happy in the relationship if it ever happened, was that everyone under their responsibility would likely suffer for their inability to agree on anything. Leaders who are supposed to be equally in charge and didn't see eye to eye on things often contradicted each other's orders, making life harrowing and confusing for everyone submitting to their leadership. Subordinates in a pack were required to follow the direction and orders of the alphas. If the alphas didn't agree or were in constant conflict, loyalties became divided. Even if the pack didn't suffer a complete divide, developing factions that supported one alpha or the other, those who remained loyal to the pack at large would suffer severe confusion and little happiness.

She loved Ginta and Hakkaku. She would hate for them to suffer. And she wasn't so mean-spirited as to want the rest of their pack to suffer for the juvenile and stubborn inability to compromise under the whims of such contentious alphas. It wouldn't be a problem for the majority of the Canadian ookami for many years, but the younger pack were likely to start experiencing it as soon as Kouga came back from wherever he'd been sent to foster. His training as an alpha could only temper his groundless superiority and tendencies to take ownership of things that couldn't be owned.

If the pack was lucky, Ayame would remain enamored with Kouga enough to just support her affianced mate blindly for a few years. But there was no doubt that conflict would arise eventually. Likely it would happen when the male refused to mate her in favor of some other flavor of the week regardless of the flavor or Ayame's wishes. Ayame would eventually get tired of being passed over. Or maybe it would happen after mating when Kouga trampled over her wants and needs a few times too many.

Kagome carefully slid out from under Hakkaku's arm and followed Emily as she pushed the cart to the next room. It was Trevor's old room. A room now housing a rather personable teenaged girl named Bonnie.

Bonnie was not supposed to be in her room, but when they all caught a glimpse inside, there she was. "Aren't you supposed to be down at radiation right now?" Kagome couldn't avoid asking, her surprise spurring the need to know a reason for Bonnie's unexpected presence.

"Dr. Carroway had an earlier slot available, so I took it," Bonnie declared with a wide, mischievous grin. "No way did I want to miss two hot guys visiting my room!"

Hakkaku blushed uncomfortably while Ginta offered a slightly more confident smirk at the comment. Hakkaku had received an abundance of female attention since the pair had started trailing behind Kagome at work. Pepper thought he was the bees knees too. The kitsune had very naturally shown her esteem through a series of increasingly troublesome pranks. Her parents were doing their best to keep her away from oncology for the rest of his visit. They intended the little spitfire to bond with Shippou.

"I wish the hospital would let me hike up the thermostat at least ten degrees in here," the teenager continued unrepentant as she watched the wolves bring in her fresh sheets. "Then they'd be encouraged to do all of this without shirts. Mmm, sweat slicked skin and muscle."

"Bonnie!" Kagome gasped, only slightly scandalized. Truly, the teenager's outrageous behavior and unconscionable ideas were part of the reason Kagome had no trouble entering this room any more.

"Oh pfft! Don't tell me you wouldn't look too!" Bonnie scoffed as she grinned up at Ginta as he lifted her from the bed into her wheel chair. She was fully capable of making the move on her own, but she liked making the wolves do it and Ginta didn't seem to mind. The strong arms of the young youkai was the most contact she ever got with a male close to her own age. "It's like my own private Chippendale's show! With free audience participation!"

Turnabout was fair play so the minute he had the patient resting safely in her "Rock It" chair, Ginta leaned forward to bring his lips against her cheek and blew a raspberry into her skin. Bonnie giggled at both the sensation and the scandalized look on Kagome's face. "Ginta! You're going to get us in trouble!" Kagome hissed quietly. The only reason both wolves were allowed to follow her around and participate in her tasks was because none of the patients or their hangers on had complained. That would end if her guests started molesting the patients.

"It's fine Kagome," Emily assured the little secret miko. "Bonnie initiated it on purpose and her family won't mind. They're just playing and it can't do any harm."

"But-"

"Who's going to know?" Bonnie demanded. "I'll never tell. You could just leave him behind you when you leave."

"Now that is never going to happen," Emily declared with good humor. "Your parents may put up with flirting with whatever male enters your room, they would be very upset to find anybody left you alone with that male."

Bonnie pouted. She was not above using the perks that came with being dreadfully ill as she had been for a long time. Kagome couldn't fault her for it. If time was limited, she was certain she would want to live what little life she had to the fullest. "You could leave the big bad wolf behind to take advantage of little red riding hood," she tried to finagle a little time along with at least Ginta. Bonnie was wearing a bright red head wrap over her bald head, obviously on purpose. Bonnie's head covers were famous in the ward.

The walls of Bonnie's room were covered in head wear of every possible kind, foreign and domestic, formal and comedic, sedate and outlandish. Apparently, a short time before it was decided Bonnie couldn't handle treatment _and_ school she'd made a comment to a friend about needing to invest in hats. Her aside had lead to a posting on the internet which lead to an influx of donated hats. So many Kagome had never seen Bonnie wear the same one twice. She'd been in the ward for nearly two months.

Ginta bared his teeth at the teenager teasingly. Kagome would interfere, but the two were enjoying the banter and it saved Hakkaku from a situation he'd deemed uncomfortable. Bonnie had originally flirted with them both equally but the younger male had never relaxed into it or offered any response that could be taken as encouraging. Kagome suspected his lack of enthusiasm had everything to do with Pepper's behavior towards him. He just couldn't handle a second female giving him hell because she decided she liked him.

Ayame huffed her greater disapproval against the wall outside the door and it was Kagome's turn to roll _her_ eyes. Whatever Ayame's opinion of outsiders with pack, she wouldn't have much say in the experiences both males had in the near future.

It was customary for all wolves to spend at least a year separated from the pack to establish individual personalities and pursue outside interests. Many wolves attended a scholastic institution of some sort, some even extended the duration of the separation from the mother pack to complete degree or certification programs. Some wolves formed their own new packs and some remained separate and alone.

Ginta would probably head for a university or college somewhere in Canada next year. He still maintained a desire to become a doctor like Kagome. He'd made inquiries about the school she'd attended in Toronto, cornering every one of her transplanted advisers to better understand requirements and academic standards. Perhaps she'd underestimated his drive and commitment.

Hakkaku still had another year beyond Ginta's. Kagome wasn't sure how he would handle being left on his own within the pack let alone outside of it when his time came. Kagome had never seen him without Ginta. The two were always together and they communicated with each other so well. He was also the clingy one on their trips around the city.

It had been Sesshoumaru's idea for her to take them around to the places she had visited months previous. The Golden Gate and Alcatraz and such. He'd told her it would be good for her. She hadn't been able to see it at the time, only desperate to fill the time of her littles visit with worthwhile pursuits. Even Ayame was more pleasant to deal with on the trips out into the city. The distraction of new sites and experiences helped to take her attention off whatever Kagome might be doing.

"Come on Loverboy," Emily called to Ginta from the hospital bed. "We haven't got all day for this."

"Are you sure?" Bonnie teased. "I think you should take all the time in the world."

"Hush you," Emily scolded and Kagome couldn't help but smile. Emily knew how hard being around Jeremy's room was for Kagome and had changed her chores around accordingly so that Bonnie always came last. More often than not, the exuberant teen was present, ready to tease any male so bold as to enter and behaving as badly as a cancer patient could.

Ginta rumbled a chuckle before tapping Bonnie on the nose with a blunt claw. "Behave," was the word he left her with when he turned back to the task of removing the sheets before handing them off to Hakkaku and taking the new set from Emily to help redress the bed.

"Damn," Bonnie muttered. "If I was a little closer I could grope him!"

Kagome was past the point of astonished castigation. Instead she choked on air, torn between being scandalized and driven to laughter.

Naturally something had to end their hilarity.

"Hey, is Emil in there?" came a voice from the door. All the occupants of the room turned to see the youkai teenager leaning into the room. Jewel was such a pretty female, Kagome noted. If only she weren't such a nasty brat. Even Ayame didn't like Jewel, as much for her disrespect of Emily, the only kinsmen willing to claim any responsibility for her health and safety as for her rampant snobbery. Jewel had snubbed the wolves from first introduction for their lack of designer clothing and expensive tech gadgets. Which annoyed Kagome since the miko well knew Jewel didn't dress in designer and her phone was two years old. Emily couldn't afford to dress the twit in haute couture.

Not that she should even if she could. Jewel was only just twelve two weeks ago. No reason for her to be setting fashion trends or aping them either.

"No one here by that name," Bonnie responded pleasantly clearly ignoring the sudden tension from everyone in the room.

Jewel blinked at pale Bonnie in her wheel chair before looking a bit farther into the room. Naturally she spotted Emily helping Ginta tug the sheets tight on the bed. "He's right there," she declared. "Are you almost done?"

"You must be mistaken," Bonnie rebuffed the stuck up youkai firmly. "There are only two males in this room and neither is named Emil. Perhaps you should continue your search elsewhere." Bonnie purposely wheeled herself to the door to block Jewel entry to her room. "I do not like rude people spewing disrespectful poison in my room. As I am stuck here and you are not, I must ask you to leave."

"Look here you sickly waste of flesh-"

"I believe you have been asked to remove yourself from a room you have no purpose in," Ayame cut in.

"Don't be daft," Jewel sputtered. "I don't care what some terminally mortal patient says, I need to talk to Emil and he is right there!"

"And you have been told there is no one here by that name. The two males in that room are my pack mates, Ginta and Hakkaku. No one else in there identifies as male. None answer to Emil, so get lost," Ayame continued forcefully.

"I don't care what daft ideas he's gotten into his head by living in this crazy town he was born male and pretending to ignore that doesn't make a difference!" Jewel shouted, impassioned by the criticism received by lesser beings.

At least four people snorted in disdain. Kagome wasn't certain who it was that didn't make the gesture. "Of course it does," Bonnie scoffed. "After all, you weren't born a pretentious bitch you only grew into that later. It's the same for Emily. She may not have been born female, but she successfully grew into one."

"I am not a bitch and she is not a girl!"

"I'm afraid that's hard to believe given your lack of manners and full blown disrespect shown to the only member of your family still willing to claim responsibility as such," Ayame scoffed. "You should be grateful your cousin bothered to take you in at all. Most would have accepted your banishment as a free pass to leave you to your own devices regardless of whether you starve to death that way or not. It would have been fully accepted to leave you to your outcast state on your own," Ayame growled, her eyes slitted in disgusted rage.

Jewel's behavior upset Ginta and Hakkaku and she would no longer tolerate it. Emily's preferred gender identity in no way threatened the gender roles accepted by the wolves. Their clan fully recognized three genders before the advent of modern surgeries. There was always that gender allowed for those whose soul did not match the body assigned to house it. The wolves took it as a lesson. To look beyond sex to spirit for worth, love and connection. "You had better learn proper manners before someone not related to you takes enough offense to rearrange your face for your continued insult to life on this planet. Your guardian goes by Emily. Regardless of your opinions concerning the lifestyle she lives, using the name chosen by your cousin is the only form of address you should be using," Ayame declared in a solid growl.

Kagome smiled at the she-wolf. The two of them may not see eye to eye on almost anything, but Kagome had long thought Jewel could use a good lesson in manners. Bonnie and Ayame could give it without risk of upsetting Emily too much, Kagome couldn't. She was too much older than the bratty youkai. She couldn't call her out for the insults Emily put up with because Kagome wasn't family and couldn't be classified as a peer for Jewel. But Bonnie was 17 and Ayame was proudly certain to add the six months onto her aggressive 15.

The red head nodded to Kagome before grabbing Jewel by the arm and dragging her out of the hospital room trailed by a vociferous Bonnie in her red hat.

"She shouldn't treat you like that," Hakkaku declared seriously, his gaze locked on the stunned expression worn by Emily. "Calling you by name is hardly a difficult concession to make even if she has trouble grasping the concept of the third gender." Such was a very generous allowance on his part since their pack grew up with the knowledge of the third gender from infancy. Even if the third gender was in actuality a fourth, fifth and sixth gender.

"Hopefully she'll learn that," Kagome smiled as they continued their work cleaning Bonnie's room. The teenager wouldn't be gone long as her strength was fast to wane. She would send Ginta to retrieve her in ten minutes if she didn't come back on her own. Jewel's education might take a long time and it was best if it was allowed to do so. Ayame could only stay if someone else brought Bonnie back in her chair.

Sesshoumaru would laugh when he heard how Jewel's disrespect had been taken down. He didn't much like Ayame and thought Bonnie was a trip. The two girls rarely got along, so hearing about the two of them setting Jewel straight would amuse him mightily. And she would hear some more about Trish, the chatterbox that played with his hair and gave Inuyasha more than he could take. Maybe she'd catch him in the midst of a sleep over and get to talk to the little girl again. Or maybe he'd be out at the Maxwell's and Nonny would hop into the discussion.

Kagome smiled secretly to herself. The last two months, those phone calls had to be her favorite time of the day, partly because everyone else left her alone to make them and partly because there was so much going on with his life right now. And he validated her comfort in the support group and dinners afterward, reassuring her that it didn't make her crazy to benefit from group therapy and encouraging her to talk to Cheryl or anyone else she felt comfortable with.


	35. Pack It In

Calendar: October.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Pack It In**

Sesshoumaru's phone rang from the pocket of his shirt. The advent of the warmer weather had prompted the Hughes to open the barn doors on the work shop allowing some more room to work and the occasional wave of fresh air. Being a creature with close ties to nature and rather susceptible to the variances of scent and natural body odor, the inu reveled in it. He'd even moved his usual work bench out into the sun, the better to soak up the sunlight. His crown of braided silver hair hadn't been enough to keep him in and the exposure of his nape to the free moving air without threat of hair blowing into his work was an added boon.

Trish was fiddling around with some of the little wooden toys her grandfather had constructed for her out scraps and spare time. The wooden letter blocks had been a suggestion made by her reading tutor and while the child had originally balked at the idea, such toys were considered baby-ish, she'd embraced the ones her "papa" made. She stacked them into words and sounds and read them aloud, celebrating every time she got something coherent. It was a game the little girl exulted in. The old man had some word blocks planned in the near future so Trish could work on sentences and grammatical structures.

Her childish laughter allowed for a soothing atmosphere that made the sound of distant traffic seem even farther away. The Hughes home was on the outskirts of town, close enough for Sesshoumaru to come and go on his own two feet, avoiding public transit entirely. It was a nice change of things, one that had been in place since Nonny had found his little sub pack their new home.

Trish grinned up at him and stopped her games whenever that sound came from his pocket. The little girl loved to talk to his mate, though he couldn't quite figure out why. Truly, his mate was pleasant and personable and she did well with children in the capacity of her profession. But Trish had never met his female in person. The inu had believed that children younger than a certain age lacked the ability to fully realize that the person on the other end of the phone was really real. Abstracts were difficult to understand when your world was limited to what you could see and touch and feel.

Innocence was marked by a limited world view. It was torn down piece by piece as the cruelty of the masses became more than some illusory outside myth. The realization that all those things taught in school about culture and geography and history were real and suffering was widespread. Trish already knew some of that, as cruelty had touched her closely, but she was still working on her understanding that pain was just as real when felt by someone else instead.

But she knew joy was real. That Sesshoumaru cared for that woman on the phone and that it made him happy when she called. And his pleasure was hers too.

With a mild chuckle, Sesshoumaru set his tools down and pulled out his phone. His mate had gotten better about calling him in recent months. He heard from her at least once daily and while there wasn't a set schedule, her timing had grown increasingly consistent. It was part of her routine, he was part of her routine, established with the last of her visitors returning home at the end of her summer months. Her littles returned to pack and school and she finished all of her requirements for the one year of observing rounds.

This little call, was a bit early for her though.

She was a full-fledged doctor now with the title and everything. His mate was still at the same hospital though. She was on-call if any hanyou got brought in, but while there weren't any in attendance, she was delving through the records of half-blood patients brought in and unsuccessfully treated in the past. It was dusty and slow work, but she had to know what hadn't worked in the past before she could start building up alternatives that might work better.

"Dr. mate," he answered with a grin. He loved to tease her a little about not knowing her name while showing he was proud of her achievement. Sesshoumaru was so very proud of what she'd managed to accomplish even though neither of them were ready to call it a full-fledged success.

"I'm sorry Sesshoumaru," she apologized immediately on the other end, surprising him as he couldn't think of anything she had done that required apology. If anything she'd been a lot more affectionate recently. He had nothing to complain of. They had a scheduled "play date" at least once a week and often, there were spontaneous trysts that popped up more often than that. She kept him abreast of her theories and frustrations.

Sesshoumaru knew she had contacted the local tribe of Native Americans hoping their shamans, weather doctors, and wise men/women would have a gentler method of suppressing youki in hanyou who would benefit from allowing their human immune system to fight disease for them. Like Trevor. Like most hanyou borne of human mothers and suffering some human ailment. The genetics inherited from the mother were fully capable of handling most of the common ailments caught by young children. And the ones that weren't could be treated with medicines designed for human use. If a hanyou caught something like a cold or chicken pocks or suffered pink eye or poison ivy, that child could get over it in the usual human time. But only if their youki was suppressed to let it happen.

Youki tended to interfere with human remedies and human immune system reactions. Most medicines were immediately rejected by youkai as harmful. This was not even mentioning life support machinery. If a Youkai's heart and breath stopped and did not start back up again on its own there was no point perpetuating the agony, of both the survivors and the dieing.

She was still trying to figure out how to fix the type of problem Jeremy had been born with. Youki suppression was only meant to be temporary. She believed, as did he, that it was important to allow a hanyou their youki so that they can learn over time what they are capable of. Such would not have helped Jeremy survive. Human bones didn't heal fast enough to replace and reenforce his support structures so as to prevent their collapse under the constant weakening caused by his youkai inheritance. The only thing his mate could think of was blocking the production of that one youkai born chemical. It would take a better understanding of how it was produced and what other systems would be effected by its absence before she could even start to propose a cure for another child to suffer Jeremy's ailment.

All of which still had him confused as to why his mate felt this sudden need to apologize. What had she done?

"I didn't mean for it to happen, but it did and there's no possible way for me to get out of it without causing more harm. She might die and she's barely begun to live. You have to believe me," her words rushed fluidly into his pointed ear and Sesshoumaru wondered when she would start making sense. Who was this "she" and just what did saving whoever it was have to do with apologizing to him?

"Mate stop! What did you do?"

"I-" she stopped to swallow tightly. He could hear the muscles work through the phone a clear indication that she was anxious and almost certainly alone. "I accidentally became a mother."

Sesshoumaru stood up abruptly knocking the bench behind him to the ground in a clatter he didn't hear. He needed space away from everyone who could interrupt the fast swirling thoughts rushing through his head trying to make reality coherent again. His usually nimble feet tripped absently over the fallen seat, sending him to his knees, but he didn't notice. How could he notice a slight pain when the world had spun completely off its axis and the sun was sure to start traveling backwards across the sky?

Trish rushed to help him up, her worry causing her to forget the words that would get her answers. Strong emotion, especially anxiety, robbed her of speech. It was a learned habit picked up under the cruel parenting style of her delinquent parents before the government had rescued her from them by sentencing the irresponsible cretins to prison for an unrelated crime. Her startled fearful face inspired him to reach out and pat the nearest shoulder as he rose to his feet and walked swiftly around to the back of the building their work shop was in. Much as he usually encouraged her to work the words free of her fears, right now he hadn't the patience to offer her that boon.

How could a woman accidentally become a mother? What did that even mean? Was she raped in a drug induced coma and only woken up to the fact when she suddenly gave birth? How was it possible she wouldn't notice the signs of that? She was a doctor. There were physical indicators of pregnancy she should have noticed were that the case. Who could even have done such a thing to her?

Granted, she'd had a lot of visitors of late, but they had all been trusted friends. Brett and Germaine were only into each other and the two wolves were too young and considerate to even think of it. Alicia couldn't get another woman pregnant and neither could Ayame. As far as Sesshoumaru knew, no one else had been allowed any where near his mate's home except the sponsor that owned the property. And _he_ hadn't even approached her for mating yet. There was no desire there, just noble intentions.

The inu took a deep breath, inhaling baked dust and drying greenery to get his thoughts to come to a stop. He needed to remain calm and drag the full story from the flighty, anxious woman trying to drive him crazy. Sesshoumaru refused to go on a rampage only to find out the situation was completely innocuous. Unless it wasn't of course. Then his very elusive mate would find herself caged under an enraged, outlaw inu youkai. Nothing would prevent him from searching her out and answering the call of his instinct to enforce his place as her only male and forever the only sire to her offspring. He would break international laws to get to her regardless of the many consequences doing so would cost.

She wasn't allowed to breed with any other partner. Sesshoumaru would give all the lateral freedoms in the world but that one. Instinct and personality just couldn't accept infidelity in her. It would break his heart no matter the reasons and his instinct would break her to even the score while he was too numb and confused to prevent it. He didn't want that, and he very much doubted that she did. It wasn't wise to entertain worst case scenarios without full understanding of what the hell she was talking about.

She'd continued babbling her apologies. He was forced to cut in.

He took another deep breath before once again trying to get his distant mate to make sense. "Mate," he couldn't help the growl coating the tones of his voice. As much as he tried not to think of the scenarios that would lead to his female becoming an "accidental mother" he wasn't as calm as Sesshoumaru wanted to seem. "I think you had better explain from the beginning."

"The beginning, right," _she_ dragged in a deep breath on her end. "All right the beginning. Just-just don't be mad at me. I didn't mean it!"

"If you do not make it clear what this Sesshoumaru is to be reacting too, I will be forced to act on incomplete and possibly false information, mate," he grit his teeth in frustration. It wasn't like her to completely fall apart like this any more. She'd never done it over anything he could have been angry about before. He didn't like that she should feel the need to now. "The beginning."

"The beginning...where?" she thought aloud absently before finally making a decision before he could wish any stronger for the ability to reach through the phone and strangle her. "You know how I've been stopping down at the ER at the beginning and end of my shifts?"

"Hn," Sesshoumaru suspected it would be more accurate to say she had been going at the beginning, end and every one to two hours in between. His secret miko was terrified of missing even a single moment of time with any hanyou patient. The losses of Jeremy and Trevor earlier this year were still felt, and though she was slowly recovering, their memory was driving her actions now. She'd been very certain to thank him repeatedly for calling in the cavalry. He hadn't even needed to tell her about his hand in the rash of visiting friends she developed over the summer.

"Hush," she quieted his teasing. Sesshoumaru had made a point to pick fun over her obsession. She refused to accept it as an obsession. She considered the constant checking as just realistic. Every hanyou that made it to her hospital was in desperate need of saving and the whirlwind work going into getting the patient stable would likely make the attending physician and nurses forget to call her. Sesshoumaru argued that it was better to wait until she _was_ called to insure she didn't get in the way of efforts to stabilize some patient suffering a health crisis.

"Anyways, I had stopped by on my way in to work when some EMTs brought in this cardboard box on a stretcher. I couldn't believe nobody had taken whoever was in that thing out of the damn box!" she huffed in the remembered outrage. "That was a person in there worthy of more respect than that no matter how small...So I jumped on the gurney and opened the flaps to find a little, newborn coyote youkai suffering from hypothermia and shock. Apparently the poor thing had been abandoned next to a dumpster and nobody found her until the garbage men came around for pick up this morning. She'd been howling for her mother when they called for emergency assistance but was too weak for it by the time they made it to the hospital," the new doctor took a deep breath to steady herself. Their bond was open by now and he could feel the tension lacing through every limb as she struggled to relax them. The day's events had riled her something terrible. "Naturally I reached into the box to try to warm her. I pulled her out and held her to my chest. It was then that things went crazy."

"Crazy how?" Sesshoumaru had managed to calm considerably with her tale. His mate had not been raped or pregnant. She hadn't bred with another male or betrayed the trust he maintained in her. He actually felt rather foolish. Someone would have noticed over the summer if she'd been pregnant.

Brett and Germaine would have made comments. Ginta and Hakkaku would have asked questions while their travel alpha derided his mate. He would have heard about it from Brett, but also when his mate complained about these strange behaviors and words from those around her.

Only his mate could become an accidental mother to a youkai pup brought into the emergency room of her hospital. "The little thing started yowling up a storm and nosing at my shirt." He could imagine. The Hughes neighbor two houses over had a new baby and even from this distance he could hear the thing at its most demanding. "And would you believe it, the representative from the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area(1) chose just that moment to show up!"

He had no doubt that his mate would find that mortifying. She'd been struggling to work through all the red tape the tribe had thrown up under suspicion that she was trying to exploit the local culture. She had read up on their history, and while the Ohlone tribal histories were fractured and broken during the Spanish missions and military presence during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, they were the most local tribe. It made sense to start with the tribe closest geographically and it wasn't entirely unfeasible that if the Ohlone couldn't supply her with knowledge or methods that would be suitable that they could get her into contact with other tribes and other peoples who might.

The point was she needed entry into the cultural community and a guide willing to keep her from offending in anyway. "Apparently being adopted by a coyote pup is major proof of a worthy spirit," she murmured off hand. "I was informed that once bonded, a pup would not take food from any other for years. I-" she stopped and swallowed hard. "It was an accident! I didn't mean to take on a pup without consulting you!"

"The bond is permanent?" Sesshoumaru asked softly.

"Yeah," she sighed. "If I don't take her on it's likely she will die of starvation regardless of whether or not food is presented to her. She won't take it from anyone else."

"Not even if her mother shows back up to claim her?" he had to ask. The last thing either one of them needed was to become attached only to have their pup taken away again by some mother feeling remorse over giving up her baby.

"Apparently not," she answered. "Dr. Manzanita(2) said that it was rare for Coyote youkai to leave a pup on its own but some of the indigenous tribes have occasionally struggled to nurture and raise pups of mixed heritage as the coyote packs will not recognize impure pups, especially when those pups were the result of some unconscionable act."

"Rape?" Sesshoumaru asked gently. His mate was finally starting to address the damage he had caused on the night of their mating. She'd found a confidant in the spider Cheryl. He knew because the arachnid had managed to steal his mate's phone once to yell at him about his actions so many years ago. He was glad his female had finally lanced that wound, but wished he didn't have to deal with the well-deserved fall out at the hands of her stand-in therapist. Luckily, after the spider's diatribe, Cheryl had decided not to push his mate to hate him with every fiber of her being.

It had surprised him, but the spider hadn't pressed his mate to feel anything towards him at all. She allowed his secret miko to vent all her feelings, lamenting the choices she'd been disallowed and the natural explorations associated with her early twenties. He didn't know precisely what they spoke of, but Cheryl didn't try to influence his partner in one direction or another. She just encouraged the outpouring his mate had always need.

Sometimes he wondered if the spider had a background in human psychology or counseling trauma survivors.

"It would be just mere speculation as it appears the Coyote elders are so disapproving of cross breeding with anything not Coyote, the mother in question could have just had a one night stand that proved a little more fruitful than expected," she added calmly. He heard the distant snuffling of the pup that was apparently in her presence despite his earlier thoughts on the subject. Sesshoumaru could hear the shifting of clothing as his mate reached for something. He could feel the muscles shifting with the strain of holding a small weight against her body while she reached to her right. A sharp yelp followed the piercing pain of little claws snagging tender skin in her breast. "Let go you little beastie. There's nothing there for you to get!" His mate settled back into the chair she'd been sitting in and carefully removed tiny paws from her scrubs. "Drink this," she muttered.

Sesshoumaru could feel her massage the wounded spot and he wished he was there to watch them both. "The pup accepts formula?"

"Dr. Manzanita said a formula high in iron would be a good temporary substitute for the mother's milk," she muttered as she rocked the pup, sucking noisily in its haste to eat. "She's gone back to her tribal elders to see if they can't find a Coyote female who's already lactating that would be willing to supply what we need. If that doesn't work out, Connor and Manny are already trying to look up other canines for possible donors. We're not quite sure what was mixed in, but most of the native canine youkai are genetically close enough to hopefully supply what we need."

"Hn," Sesshoumaru pondered as he reached out to stroke his youki over his female and new pup. The little furry female tensed at his touch but eventually relaxed since her bonded mother found him no threat. "It is good that you informed me so quickly mate. The pup will start siphoning your reiki from you. When she exhausts you enough, you would no longer be able to hold your interference with the bond we share. This Sesshoumaru would worry you were being attacked and react violently towards the thief with his youki."

"I hadn't thought of that," she tensed in surprise before relaxing with a sigh. "I forgot that youkai young leech youki from their parents until they're fully weaned."

"It is probably best you leave your interference down for at least the first year," he advised, completely honest in the needs of their pup. "It would be better if you never approach the level of exhaustion that would leave you incapable of tending the pup. She will pull this one's youki in as much as your reiki that way. It is better for parents to split the duties."

"True," she agreed. "Besides, there's always the possibility that a steady influx of nothing but reiki might do her some harm." Sesshoumaru hadn't thought of that. Her power was rich and warm, but it was still inherently different from his own. He loved the feel of it against his youki, but he was a fully developed youkai with an established aura of his own. The pup had yet to develop that far. But without her reiki it was doubtful the little pup would have bonded to his mate at all. "We're just lucky the trash pick up guys knew she was a youkai and not just a puppy in a box."

Youkai pups were born in their natural forms and held to them almost constantly until they were weaned and had youki enough of their own to make the change. "Have you named her yet?"

"No," she responded. "I know I kind of adopted us our first child without asking you first. No way was I going to leave you out of anything else. Dr. Manzanita also said she was going to get the tribal lawyers working on the legal factors required to keep our new pup. They'll want a name when the papers are drawn up. Do you want me to give her your family name?"

"It is better not to," Sesshoumaru answered honestly while his mind whirled with possible names for his first pup. "When this Sesshoumaru leaves the greater pack that name will likely be disallowed to follow me. I will take your family name. When and if Inuyasha follows he will do the same." He snorted, "He would probably do it just to take the name of one of his sanctuary families."

"He is a little attached to us," she was smiling, he could tell. The determined sucking sound was beginning to diminish. "They tell me they've found a piece of property to build my clinic on."

"They are building your clinic?" he asked surprised. It seemed unusual that they would start her off with a brand new building rather than adapting a building already erected.

"I've found that hanyou usually do better in rural settings, as the patients we get from the country are fewer in number. At first I just thought they didn't make it this far, but some of the area clinics in rural communities have a higher success rate with sending their hanyou patients home again."

"Must be the inherent pollution in cities," Sesshoumaru opined. Full-blooded youkai themselves did better in the wide-open spaces of forested tracts and rolling hills, flat lands, and even deserts.

"Most of my youkai sponsors came to the same conclusion, so they found me a ridiculously large plot of land to build on. I've asked for the greenest materials possible and self-sustaining resources too. It would cut down on the pollution contaminating the grounds we chose for their lack of it, and insure that we will almost never be without life-sustaining power. They're talking of solar panels and the most recent inventions for extracting water from the air so we'll be drought resistant," she went on, clearly excited by the work being done on her future. "I haven't seen any plans yet. But there's lots of room to build outward with time. I'm hoping they start kind of small though. I'm only one person."

"True," Sesshoumaru agreed still trying to decide between the two names that would be appropriate for their first female pup. She held the pup up to her shoulder and rubbed along its back to encourage the release of any air taken in with the formula.

"I was informed that my housing was no longer suitable for my new situation," she told him, switching topics again. "I'm supposed to be moved out to the country closer to the new clinic site within the next six months."

"They are moving you on-site?" he asked. She would always be on-call with no hope of getting away from her work that way. This was not ideal for a mated pair that hadn't been separated for a considerable space of time. For him and her it would be _most_ inconvenient.

"Not quite. Pepper's family is apparently in possession of some undeveloped mountain property. It's a bit isolated without too many neighbors. You and Inuyasha and now this little one will have room to run," she continued. "That is, if you can get past being neighbors with Kitsune." Which was a lot to ask of an inu. Sesshoumaru didn't like the parents or cousin of that little girl his mate had saved. He didn't care if their behavior had improved with time and familiarity, they had broken bones and some small pieces of her spirit. "I believe there's also some Coyote in the area. Some of the few Ohlone allotments are nearby too."

"How far is it from your clinic site?" Sesshoumaru felt compelled to ask.

"It'll be a farther commute than I'll want the first few years," she replied. "but far enough when I'm not the only one around to treat everything but an emergency. I'm working on citizenship and I'll get a driver's license after that. Gloria, Connor, and Emily have promised to chauffeur me around when my sponsors can't."

"Hnn,"Sesshoumaru acknowledged the words she related without expressing an opinion on things he really didn't care about. How his mate got around in the near future was a technical problem she would handle in her fashion. He had no doubt she would find some safe means of transportation that would incorporate her new responsibility to their pup. Inu pups required the constant presence of their maternal parent during the first year. He wasn't sure the same applied to Coyote pups, but he knew wolves required the same.

"Have you decided on a name?" came the question he was expecting. "She's done eating and I kind of have to try and get some work done while she's content. I'm currently outside on the roof for the moment. It was the quietest place I could find within short distance of the records room where I could use the phone."

"It would be more prudent for you to sleep while she does," he murmured thoughtfully. "Your insomnia may not stand up to the prolonged demands of the pup."

"There's been a lot of speculation over that. Carter-sensei, Miriam-sensei and Vauhn-sensei all insist I leave off my research for about the next month. Gloria is making plans to throw me a baby shower to help buy me all the things I supposedly need to have for my new pup." She sounded both bewildered and exasperated. "Three separate people have offered me baby cribs, two of which are family heirlooms." Sesshoumaru chuckled as he fully understood her incomprehension. Human babies might be safer sleeping in their own beds, but pups wouldn't sleep without the constant warmth and thrumming heart beat held close to them. A crib would just be a useless piece of furniture and a complete waste of space in her little guesthouse apartment.

Sesshoumaru had heard how tight things got with her guests over the summer. The small space had barely held the numbers of her visitors inside in comfort. If her littles weren't wolves and comfortable sleeping in piles, it would have been completely unbearable.

"A name Sesshoumaru, so I may leave you with the taste of it in your mouth," she whispered as he assumed the demanding little pup found peaceful rest in her arms. "A name that she might begin to learn it. I'm going to break out that scent box when I get home tonight. She needs to know you and you can expect a package in the mail so you can learn her scent too."

"Lots of pictures mate," he demanded.

She chuckled in his ear, "That goes without saying. Expect videos even."

"Katarin(3)" he dubbed their first pup. It was a combination of her grandmother's name and the name of his grandsire's mate.

"Kata-chan?" she tried it out.

"Perhaps Rin-chan would be more appropriate," he commented.

"True Rin-chan," she agreed. "you have been honored with great names, new daughter of Taishou Sesshoumaru, heir to the Taishou clan."

"Daughter to Sesshoumaru's mate and companion to the world's first hanyou doctor," he added unwilling to let her leave off the honor of her side of their daughter's parentage. It would last longer than his honors in any case. If his alpha discovered he had adopted a pup not of inu decent the older inu might disown him without Sesshoumaru having to formally break free on his own. He was a prejudiced old dog. Only lenient when the offspring was of his personal blood mixed with Izayoi. The bigot.

"Again I'm sorry for making you a father without consulting you first, it just happened so fast," the female apologized again.

"This Sesshoumaru is not and will never be sorry for taking in our Rin-chan," he assured her. He had accepted new pack, he was a father. Granted it was a secret, but he couldn't help but be proud of that fact.

Besides, he rather thought taking care of their new pup would be good for his mate, keep her from wallowing in the sorrow of losing Trevor and Jeremy, her latest paper cranes sent on to the care of her grandmother.

Typed &amp; Written: July 27, 2014

(1)_This is a real tribal organization representing the native people indigenous to the San Francisco bay area. The indigenous tribes of the area were unduly effected by the Spanish explorers and Franciscan missions. Their numbers were pared down first by a number of runs into their semi-permanent settlements by military escorted missionaries set to convert the locals. Those who wound up in the missions were then nearly wiped out by disease, further diminishing their number. Ohlone is a term that applies to more than just one tribe though most of the tribes it does describe were known to have mostly peaceable relations with their neighbors, inter-marrying and trading. It is believed that all such tribes practiced a form of shamanism for religion with similar creation stories. They practiced both the use of herbs for healing and spiritualism involving the use of sweat lodges. Most of their religion was lost under the religious oppression imposed by the European Missionaries common to the earliest efforts of Europeans to "settle" North and South America. For more information you could google the Ohlone._

(2)_I couldn't find a surname specific to the Ohlone tribes. A representative from the tribal organization doesn't have to be full-blooded member of the tribe and it is a rare member who would be after the Spanish missions nearly wiped them out. There's not much of the language still spoken as the last fluent speaker died in the 1930s. Manzanita is a spanish word applied to a native growing ever green shrub or small tree. It means "little apple" and sounded surname-ish enough. I mean no disrespect._

(3) _I made up a name (I am aware that such a name may exist in other cultures, but this one would be spelled with Kanji. characters to have a specific meaning.) Japanese culture allows for this as both Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru's names were made up through the combination of kanji symbols to create new names with new meanings Inu means dog and Yasha means "demon" with a female connotation therefore the entire name together means "female dog demon". Sesshou means "to take life away" and Maru means "Perfection/circle of life". The most elegant choice of meanings for his name complete is "the Killing perfection" which isn't quite as literal as "the destroyer of the circle of life". Kata is a Japanese name that means "worthy" and Rin means "companion" which is why Sesshoumaru thinks Rin-chan is more appropriate because she will be a constant companion to his mate in his continued absence. The combination of the two would mean (if I understand it correctly) "Worthy Companion". If I in some way perverted or misunderstood this practice I apologize. (Rin and Kata meanings taken from Babyname. Com Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru meanings googled.) I love google, use it._


	36. Boom Baby

Sesshoumaru is really proud to be a father, taking to the new position like a duck to water.

Calendar: October. Approximately one week later.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Boom Baby**

Sesshoumaru was rummaging through the things in his room trying to think of what he could send to California to better let his new pup know his scent. The scent box he'd gifted his mate years ago would only dust his female's skin lightly with the components that made up his personal aroma. While it would keep the pup familiar with his existence in a peripheral way, it wouldn't make the pup identify him as a pack member or father figure. He would just be someone who spent a lot of time with her mother but never with her. Now that he had the title of father, he wanted to fill it as much as possible from across the ocean.

The trouble was, he needed something both durable and safe that he had spent enough time with to set his scent deep enough that surface handling by the pup or his mate wouldn't obliterate the entirety of it. There wasn't much that came to mind. He used his carving tools enough to ingrain the scent of their user deep in the grips, but he doubted any mother would consent to give a new born pup blades used for carving wood. He spent enough time with his tablet and mp3 player, but again these were not things a young pup could be gifted. The computer would likely break long before the scent that covered it would do either of them any good and the music player would likely get gnawed on until something either broke off and choked the pup or the cord did the same thing externally.

There was no way in hell, Sesshoumaru would part with the digital frame next to his bed. He handled it often enough to leave plenty of scent, but it was the frame that held all the pictures of his mate in her many varied costumes. He'd even kept the ones where she'd draped that troublesome negligee over un-sexy parts of her person, just to tease him. The inu loved any glimpse of that mysterious female he could get and an ankle or wrist were just as treasured as the full body pictures. The frame flickered through all of the images and no one had been allowed to see them. A mostly nude mate was not to be shared with any member of his current pack. Someone would have to fully trespass into his room to see it and not even Inuyasha would be so disrespectful. He didn't go in their room, they didn't come into his without invitation.

Most of his clothing was washed far too often to provide the necessary personal scent needed to serve his purpose as he shared Kikyou's views on laundry as opposed to Inuyasha's. There was no way he was going to send his new pup a pair of underwear, the only article of clothing likely to hold scent even after washing. The connotations to gifting worn underwear were not the type to be appropriate for his pup. Not now as she was younger, or ever as she was far too precious to be trusted with males out to take her away from her family. He'd make the sacrifice to send some to his mate (if she'd ever managed to hint a desire for something of his loaded with scent), but it was absurdly outrageous to do so for a mere pup. Moreso given the pup in question was his first daughter.

Besides, it had always been Sesshoumaru requesting articles of her clothing for the comfort of scent, not the other way around. He'd never had to even think about what he could send to his mate to convey scent beyond the scent box and assorted handmade gifts. The lack of such requests on her part hadn't been a clue to her species before. She wasn't attached to him and therefore had no attachment to his scent and there were several species of youkai who were as weak in their sense of smell as most humans.

"Who the hell do we know from California?" Kikyou called through the flat as she struggled with the door. She had just returned from her classes and adding any burden to her already loaded person was a bane. This term's courses had required she carry several heavy texts with her through out the day. Given the day of the week she was also carrying a lunch bag, purse, and some form of caffeinated beverage to see her through preparations for dinner, studying, and homework.

Sesshoumaru typically collected the mail before she got home. His hands were free and his arrival time was earlier than either of his flatmates. It wouldn't have mattered for Inuyasha since the hanyou on his own would likely leave the mail to pile up indefinitely. There was nothing the boy could be bothered with likely to be delivered to their box. Inuyasha didn't handle bills, packages from home were not anticipated by the boy, and the local advertizing and coupons were too Australian for him to care about. Sesshoumaru handled the household expenses beyond their grocery shopping, which Kikyou insisted on taking care of personally.

Kikyou was another matter. She received mail that she actually wanted; packages from her parents, local and foreign fashion and food magazines, and local business offers. She was actively networking for the purpose of her family's business expansion. If mail was in the box, she would collect it regardless of how over-burdened she already was. Her parents often sent her materials and gifts and indications of affection and care that she _wanted_ to receive.

But this package was for him and he'd been waiting for it all week. Sesshoumaru bolted from his room and appeared in front of the struggling woman two seconds later.

Kikyou started violently, "Don't do that!" Clearly he had startled her egregiously as she dropped her bag of books on his foot and the package she'd been asking after on top of that. The rest of the mail came cascading after since her jump had sent the lighter pieces higher than the cardboard box.

Sesshoumaru couldn't hold back the sharp yelp he released at the sudden assault on his person. No serious damage had been done to his limb, but it was a pain he hadn't expected. His golden eyes glared at the woman from up close as he reached for the package now sporting one severely damaged corner. He didn't care if her heart was pounding and she had been mildly frightened. She'd thrown her books at him and dropped a package that wasn't hers. He hoped whatever his mate had sent him about Rin-chan was resilient and well packed or else it might be in pieces.

"Serves you right," Kikyou huffed as she bent to retrieve her own bag. "I'm human and you just appeared out of nowhere with no warning!"

He growled mildly at her disrespect but didn't bother to reply. Kikyou in this type of mood was never reasonable. It was better to ignore her or risk offending her enough to ignite the bomb of Inuyasha's unstable temper.

"What has you in such a grumpy mood?" the annoyed woman demanded. "You're not the one who just had the life scared out of him."

"If you damaged the contents of this package you will be the one to explain it to this Sesshoumaru's mate," he called back from the living room. He'd make her do it too. The inu didn't care if the bigger part of the parcel couldn't be damaged by a fall or even a sledge hammer. Physical damage of that type wouldn't erase the pup's scent that saturated whatever his mate had sent. Limited though the contact would have to have been to send his way so quickly, pups were prone to rubbing scent over everything.

"I thought she was in Canada," Kikyou called as she trailed him to the living room, setting her bag of books on the provided sofa. Her purse had already been tucked in the drawer under the stand by the door. The keys she used to get inside found their home on her designated hook under the mirror. The hanyou's fiance wasn't quite as mercurial in her temper as Inuyasha was, but she obviously felt that any chance to learn more about Sesshoumaru's mate and her own future sister-in-law was more important than her irritation.

He should have known she'd follow the package once his mate's connection with it was established. "That was last year, her last year of study. She has been in California for some time now." Sesshoumaru's voice still carried the sound of his upset over Kikyou's clumsiness as he tried to figure out the safest way to get past the scrunched surfaces of the box guarding his mate's parcel.

"What is she doing there?" came the obvious question. "Why didn't she just return to Japan?"

Sesshoumaru blinked slowly at the woman to buy time. How did he explain his mate's relocation to yet another foreign country without giving too much away? "She has been interning with a prestigious organization in her field," honest enough. A hospital that her supervisors' felt was worthy of furthering her education had to be prestigious to some degree. "She was recently promoted to a position of higher responsibility." Also true. She'd been made a fully vested doctor with greater diagnosing privileges and higher visibility. Granted, she still worked under the supervision of a significant number of more experienced physicians. She was no longer a student restricted by their schedules for her.

"Congratulations then," Kikyou commented skeptically. Sesshoumaru knew she didn't like vague. She didn't like that he kept her in the dark when she'd already given promise not to reveal his mate if she happened to figure it out.

He didn't mean to upset or insult her, but he knew so little about his mate. Every piece of information was a glowing treasure he held tight to his heart in the absence of the woman herself. Sharing those little tidbits was also risking the distribution of information to the open ears of his father. Inuyasha wasn't exactly the best at keeping his head in a fit of temper. The less he knew the less he could give away in the heat of the moment. Temper and heat characterized all Inuyasha's interactions with the alpha, whether on the phone or in person.

Kikyou might be more difficult to rile that much, but she held healthy lines of communication with his brother. Rather than strain their relationship by asking the female to keep information from her lover, Sesshoumaru just didn't tell either of them anything.

It was different with Max and Nonny or even the Hughes and Trish. None of them had direct ties to Taishou Hiroyuki. Nonny was crafty enough that even if she ever met the alpha inu, she wouldn't divulge a thing and Max would drive all of Sesshoumaru's parents up the wall with his taciturnity. Sesshoumaru had found that the old human man got that way when he disapproved of something and Max thoroughly disapproved of Hiroyuki's parenting and lifestyle.

"Are you happy about her extended time away from Japan?" Kikyou asked carefully.

"Her returning to Japan now would in no way benefit this Sesshoumaru," he answered pointedly. "I am not in Japan."

She blinked quickly before fully assimilating the reality of the statement. They really had no idea when they would be returning home. Taishou Hiroyuki had quite plainly refused to let them return as another pack member had taken sick over the summer in Japan. Jirro had kindly let them keep the flat they were in so they hadn't been required to move. It was lucky that Sesshoumaru hadn't already given notification of moving. But it was likely it wouldn't have mattered. There were no other tenants currently using spaces of Jirro's building.

Kikyou had been a little put out, she was ready to go home, but couldn't go without Inuyasha blowing a gasket. "Did you expect her to extend her stay this long beforehand?" If he had it might explain his complacency about returning home.

"Indeed," he acknowledged his foreknowledge. "However, returning to Japan does not have the draw for this Sesshoumaru as it does you and Inuyasha. My life is not enriched by ever being at the alpha's beck and call, denied the privilege of making other commitments that interfere with last minute demands for attendance to meetings and parties and business dinners." He dropped the subject to better concentrate on wedging his claws under what used to be a flat flap of card board. Removing the corrugated paper product would be an easy task, if he didn't worry about further damaging the precious innards.

"Would you stop being so fussy and just open the damn thing?" Kikyou huffed in exasperation. His prolonging the task was apparently irritating her temporarily forgotten guilt and pique. Sesshoumaru didn't care. If anything had survived her carelessness, he wanted it to remain in one piece.

"It would be open now if you hadn't dropped it on a corner," he growled at her in irritation of his own.

"I wouldn't have dropped it if you had scared the breath out of me," she gave a human growl of her own. It wasn't fearsome as a full inu youkai's could be. Even Inuyasha's meager growls would be more effective at conveying her displeasure. Not that he cared or would adjust his actions to accommodate her demands. She wasn't his mate and her impatience was merely annoying in a way most associated with tired children.

"Hn," he allowed the growl to fall below the range of human hearing. She obviously wasn't going anywhere until she knew what was in the package. The flap came loose from the bulk of wrinkled brown paper making the rest of the process much easier.

"Yo! What's everybody doing in here?" Inuyasha demanded just as the contents of the package were finally revealed. The soft fabric wafted the strong scent of a pup like a cloud. For once the hanyou's mouth closed as his nose went to work overtime. "What's that?"

"Receiving blankets?" Kikyou murmured in confusion. "Why would she send you baby blankets?"

"Did someone in the pack have another brat or something?" Inuyasha demanded in his quietest tones.

"Hn," Sesshoumaru narrowed his eyes at his half brother. "Study the scent a little more, hanyou."

Inuyasha stepped a little closer, nose twitching as Kikyou pulled out the top cotton blanket, releasing a stronger cloud of scent for him to sample. "Not inu," Sesshoumaru's brother thought aloud, slowly processing what his nose was telling him. "Not Ookami either. Who do you know that has a pup that smells not quite inu and not quite wolf."

"This information will not be passed on to anyone in Japan," Sesshoumaru stared both of his pack mates down in perfect seriousness. "Father cannot know until we are ready to sever ties."

"What are you talking about?" Inuyasha demanded loudly.

Sesshoumaru blinked at the ignorance displayed by the second son of Taishou Hiroyuki. "The Taishou pack has no mixed breed members beyond you, Inuyasha. Have you never noticed?" It floored the elder inu disproportionately, he knew the hanyou was unobservant. The boy hadn't even picked up on the inner workings of the pack as it was let alone how it was wrong until Kikyou had taught him different. There were numerous pack members mated to females that weren't inu, but no pups existed from such unions. The alpha wouldn't allow it unless the dilution was by his own actions. The bigot.

"I just thought that the mixed couples were infertile or that cross breeding was difficult like the trouble father and mother had," Inuyasha growled defensively. "Why would I think any differently?"

"Inuyasha," Kikyou gasped at both his seeming stupidity and his attitude. Sesshoumaru was alpha of their sub-pack, a responsibility he handled well. Inuyasha may have slightly dominating characteristics, but he lacked the inherent sense of duty necessary to be in charge of a pack of any size. He couldn't build a budget to save his life. He refused to address the tedium of paying bills and managing the legal paperwork required for them to continue their stay in this foreign country. He'd accepted Sesshoumaru's place as alpha but was displaying a lack of respect for his elder brother for pointing out a lack of her lover's understanding. "Breeding between canine species of youkai is almost more prolific and easier than within the breed. A number of them even conceive multiples in each pregnancy."

"How the heck am I supposed to know that?" Inuyasha demanded.

"Settle down," Sesshoumaru huffed. Inuyasha was too close to be that loud. He would allow Kikyou to school the boy. Her removal of the top blanket had revealed a digital frame labeled with the pup's name nestled between it and the second blanket in the box. His mate had seemingly thought of everything. There was a blanket full of scent for each inu pack mate and a series of pictures for the one member of their group who would get more from images than smell. Not that he couldn't fully appreciate pictures of his new daughter too.

"And youkai breed relatively well with humans, even if the resulting children do not often survive long after birth," the woman continued. "Your mother's difficulties are actually atypical of such a relationship indicating she likely would have had trouble with any children that were pure human rather than mixed. It is likely something in her physiology that causes these problems which is entirely something inherited through her genetics. The royal classes of her birth time were prone to intermarriage among close family."

"Hn, the only humans known to consistently have trouble with conception and carrying hanyou are the long diminished numbers of the miko. Their inherent nature makes it difficult to support life so opposed to their inborn aura of holiness," Sesshoumaru added thoughtfully as he removed the battery taped to the back of the frame and worked to install it properly. The memory stick was already in place and he was eager to see his new pup with her scent clouding thickly around his head.

"Then why aren't there other pups that are mixed?" Inuyasha demanded in blatant confusion. There were a number of pack members who had mated Ookami and Kitsune and even two tanuki as well over the passage of centuries. There were others who had mated pure humans too. But none had presented the pack with children to strengthen their numbers.

"The alpha of a healthy pack regulates the other members lives for the greater good of the pack. In times of hardship, he will ban the conception of pups. In a healthy pack, he would then lift the ban when resources are abundant," Kikyou continued. "I do not know of any reason for Taishou-sama to prevent only certain pack members from conceiving and birthing pups, but it does not speak well for his tolerance of mixed breeds."

"Hn, the old fool is a bigot," Sesshoumaru declared shortly as he turned the frame back to facing up once the battery was properly installed.

"Hey!"

"Inuyasha, anything he says about your father he is also saying about his own father," Kikyou reminded the younger inu. "And certainly the absence of mixed pups within the pack under your father's management supports such an assertion." She glanced back over Sesshoumaru's shoulders to glimpse the swift changing scenes on the frame's front. "Oh, isn't she adorable!"

Inuyasha came closer to look despite his continued belligerence over the subject of their father's supposed specism. "Looks a little scruffy." The small pup's reddish-brown fur stuck out at odd angles from one image to the next, likely due to handling and activity. Most of the images had the little female cuddled close to her adoptive mother's chest, pawing at her bosom and sucking down a bottle of formula or provided milk. Some had the pup lying over some limb of Sesshoumaru's mate gnawing on the corner of some board book filled with ABCs or drooling over a plastic bone.

The bone had been Sesshoumaru's suggestion as it would certainly last longer than some hardened book cover. The pup had no fangs yet, but once she did the little baby books would be decimated if they weren't made of something sturdier than pressed wood pulp. As the focus of each photo was the pup, his mysterious female's identity and facial features remained carefully concealed.

Kikyou glared at her lover and smacked him in the back of his head. "How could you say such a thing about a mere pup, you jerk! You'll give her a complex before she has the chance to develop a personality!"

"Hey!" the hanyou protested loudly by Sesshoumaru's ear. "I just said she was scruffy looking. It's not like the little bitch can hear me or anything!"

Sesshoumaru narrowed his eyes at his younger brother in censure. "You will not be allowed to speak to my pup. _Ever_," he declared firmly.

"Wha-"

"You've adopted her?" Kikyou asked politely after reaching over to pinch Inuyasha's ear in reprimand. "She'd lovely. How did you come by her?"

"Hn, she was abandoned as a newborn and latched onto this one's mate at first opportunity," Sesshoumaru explained succinctly.

"Ha! So you were claimed by a little brat!" Inuyasha began to chortle until Kikyou kicked him firmly in the shin.

"Will you grow up!" she hissed at him behind the new father's back before returning her attention to the matter at hand. "It is considered to be a sign of great honor to be bonded to by a coyote pup. They are known to eschew the handling of those they deem untrustworthy to the point of starving to death. They are very selective and there is no known trait or method of judgment over what makes a person worthy of the position. Sometimes they even reject the mothers that birth them for not meeting their criteria."

"What? How can a newborn make that type of judgment?" Inuyasha demanded with surprise. "And what the hell is a Coyote?"

"They are youkai native to North and Central America," Kikyou explained. "And I already said nobody knows how they do it or even what the pups are looking for in a parent." She returned her attention to Sesshoumaru, "You have been greatly honored."

It occurred to Sesshoumaru to wonder how Kikyou knew so much about youkai. Her profession and that of her family would in no way require her to learn it and if her knowledge preceded her relationship with Inuyasha the way he'd always thought there was reason to suspect something. "Are you miko?" Sesshoumaru asked baldly. It was important for him to know as alpha as her health needs would differ slightly than that of a pure human.

Kikyou flushed brightly in anxiety; she'd never displayed such fear around him. Kikyou was usually respectful and while her prolonged relationship with Inuyaha and living situation with Sesshoumaru had relaxed her a bit, she still remained mostly formal in their dealings when not influenced by immediate irritation. She was considerate of Sesshoumaru's needs as an inu, storing the materials sent her from home in boxes that blocked the strong scents from polluting their living spaces and moderating Inuyasha's proclivity to stink up the place with his laundry. She'd gotten better about supplying meat even if she didn't bother to cook it during all months of the year and she made less demands of him. She still insisted on regular group meals, but less often than when they first began this study abroad.

"Hn," he murmured, fairly certain her reaction was a confession of her heritage. "Do not let that piece of information fall to the Alpha's ears either."

"What? Why?" Inuyasha's blustery questions were beginning to get on Sesshoumaru's nerves.

"You would immediately be allowed to mate her," Sesshoumaru started before finishing, "But would never be allowed to leave the pack or attempt to breed her."

"Why is it I never know what the hell you're talking about?" Inuyasha huffed. "Why would Kikyou being more than plain human make that big a difference?"

Kikyou stared at him like there was no way her lover could be so ignorant of reality. Truly, Sesshoumaru couldn't quite figure out how the boy had missed that little bit of information. That is, if the boy had known his fiance was even a miko. "Are public schools truly so lax in their teaching of history and current events?" Sesshoumaru asked himself. "Miko are rare. Their rarity is directly related to how youkai use and abuse their gifts. You saw the damage done to Atsuki and Habiki's mate after the nuclear disaster. Father used her until she collapsed from exhaustion then failed to give her adequate time to recover before calling her back again."

"But that's just because of the emergency," Inuyasha protested.

"You think so?" Sesshoumaru's eyebrow inched higher. "She was gaunt before that problem arose. Why do you think we never saw her? If she wasn't actively working under father's orders as alpha, she was too exhausted to be fit to see. She has not been allowed to leave the clan estate since their mating was announced before the alpha. Grandfather said she used to be a vibrant woman with great desire to travel, to see the world. Now she is too worn out to evince much of a personality and Atsuki and Habiki both have been caught seeking their carnal pleasures elsewhere because she is too exhausted to meet their needs."

"But it's okay for you to know about Kikyou?" Inuyasha growled gruffly. "Won't you use her the same way father would?"

Sesshoumaru smirked before turning to Kikyou, "Do you believe I will exploit your secret, use your gifts, snuff out your individuality for personal or pack gain?"

Kikyou studied their amber-eyed alpha and realized two things. His warnings were earnestly given and honestly meant. They were based on experience and personal knowledge of the Taishou pack under the rule of Hiroyuki. He had not seen fit to use her for more than cooking in the more than two years they had all shared living space and she didn't honestly see that changing now. "No," came the answer. No male who would cater to the needs of a distant female he'd never met would exploit her in the ways that made so many of her forebears mere shells of reiki. No male who would adopt a pup sight unseen so closely into his heart as to defend her from mild ridicule would stoop so low.

"Kikyou?" Inuyasha questioned her mildly.

"I know just where to hang this," Kikyou changed the subject as she reached past the imposing inu to pick up the digital frame. "There's a spot in the dining room next to a photo of your grandfather that's just been dying for something to fill it. Do you know what else she's mixed with?" the newly revealed miko continued to ramble as she collected the necessary tools to accomplish the task.

Sesshoumaru smiled and trailed behind her to supervise the introduction of his new pup to the only member of his pack that would never get to meet her.


	37. Breaking Ground

Each chapter is rich with little details designed to make you think about more than just what is on the page. I write with a certain level of respect and expectation for the intelligence and perception of my readers. Which is not to say confusion is unexcusable. I use a lot of slang and euphemisms that are older than I am. I love language and my college level vocabulary usually doesn't find much exercise anywhere else. Sometimes you're effected by something else going on in your life and therefore aren't paying attention or are so eager to KNOW what happens next that you gloss over some parts. Maybe you are ill and your thoughts are fuzzy. Or maybe you're younger than you should be for a fic Rated M and just don't know enough about human nature, cause and effect, and general life experience.

Calendar: December.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Breaking Ground**

Kagome ran breathlessly through the little guest house that had been her home for slightly more than a year. She giggled playfully as Rin-chan chased behind her. Dr. Manzanita had advised that chasing was integral to Katarin's natural development as it taught tracking habits that were ingrained in the breed. There was pouncing, hide and seek, and scent games to help her little pup find her way through life. It was important to train a certain reliance on scent for direction and hunting early.

Most canines relied heavily on scent to relate to the world, but if they weren't taught how to interpret that information or what uses could be made of the sense, they never learned how. Such a lack of development would limit Rin-chan's ability to socialize with other youkai, canine or not, because it would be expected of her to know. The ability was there, the use of it was expected so the training was started young via games.

Besides, Rin-chan liked to chase her mother around and Kagome enjoyed the exercise limited though it was. Most of their games were held indoors, from one room of the little house to another. From Kitchenette to the main living space, from the tiny closet next to the front door to the equally miniscule linen closet of the bathroom, pup and mother ran and hid and tracked and chased. So far the game hadn't advanced to hiding behind closed doors or completely out of sight as Rin had evinced a few minor hang ups about being left completely alone and Kagome felt insecure about the pup's safety even with the lack of obvious dangers in her temporary home. Besides, Kagome was better able to gauge the difference from mere frustration and mounting exhaustion. She wouldn't hamper Rin's ability to learn to deal with her own problems by removing obstacles or solving problems at the first hint of difficulty, but when her baby was just too tired to develop productive solutions it was definitely time to end the game.

These games were meant to make gaining a skill more engaging. It wasn't supposed to make it mindlessly easy, just more enjoyable. Every good game should teach something to the players. It was the same premise behind human parents playing Peek-a-boo with babies.

For now, Kagome was faster than the pup and sometimes capable of greater movement. It was surprising how quickly Kagome had managed to incorporate her new pup's personal and instinctual needs into her life. The month off had been very helpful and clearly needed once the coyote youkai had learned how to use those big paws to move forward. Once she figured out how to traverse in the direction that most intrigued her, it was all just go, go, go.

Some days, Kagome was exhausted long before Rin was ready for bed and some days they both crashed happily at the same time. Kagome couldn't take her eyes off the pup for a second because she was always getting into something and there was just no way to stop her. Playpens had proven useless. Baby gates collapsed under the onslaught of enthusiastic and curious pup. Kagome was just glad that she had very little that could be damaged by the little female and that none of it could harm the pup in turn.

Announcing the new member of her family to her mother had turned into a fiasco. Kagome shivered at the memory as she settled around the side of her dresser out of direct sight of the door. Rin-chan's paws padded against the bare floor hunting her elusive prey, and the new mother smiled as the fluffy fur came into sight against the open door. Kagome could see the pup, but Rin hadn't learned to look up and take in the whole room yet. Instead her nose hovered close to the floor tracking the scent she was most familiar with.

When Kagome had called her mom, Higurashi Kie, she had merely expected to inform the new grandma of her first grand child, she hadn't expected to reach her entire family at once. There was no reason to expect Souta and his new wife to be there so soon after marrying and she'd had no way of knowing they were moving in. Most new couples found an apartment and with Souta's new job, Kagome had rather expected he would set up house in a company apartment. Barring that, given that their family was still so small, it wasn't unheard of to expect Souta and Hiromi to get a one room apartment for the two of them for at least the first year or so. It was Kagome's understanding that a new husband and wife preferred the privacy of living on their own to living with one set of in-laws or the other.

But times were still hard in Japan. Housing was at a premium, so Souta and his wife Hiromi had decided to move immediately into his childhood room at the shrine. At least, Kagome believed they were in his room. She couldn't imagine there was a reason to move anyone else from their originally designated rooms. Unless Souta was offered the room their parents had always kept, as was possible, but unlikely until the pair started popping out kids of their own.

Kagome's mother had been equal parts surprised and overjoyed until Souta's Hiromi had cut in with an angry fit. Apparently, Hiromi thought Kagome had willfully adopted Rin-chan for no other reason than to steal attention from the newly weds, attention she apparently believed was still their due. The woman Kagome had never met thought Kagome was selfish, self-centered, and the worst sort of attention whore to be found. How she had come to that conclusion was a bit vague.

True, Kagome was fairly certain Hiromi's opinions about Kagome were based on Souta's perceptions prior to his visit, but not even Souta had believed his sister to be that bad. Unless the little chit was jealous of Kagome stealing Souta's attention from his bride a month before their nuptials when he came to visit. Even then, it wasn't as if Kagome had known about his trip beforehand. Nor had she spoken much with her little brother for years before that. Souta was always out living his life and Kagome's only knowledge of what antics he got up to were through the communications of their mother.

Kagome didn't know if she ever wanted to meet her new sister after that conversation. All she'd wanted to do was let her mother know the particulars as clearly her family needed to know such an important addition in her life and to their clan. She hadn't expected to be attacked for her questionable timing. Life happened when it would. Rin was born at the proper time for her to be born. She was unfortunately abandoned almost immediately after that. How Kagome could have intentionally saved the infant coyote youkai's life when there had been no way of knowing such an adorable pup would be brought by the Emergency room in a cardboard box half frozen with exposure, starvation, and shock, she couldn't even fathom.

If Souta's new wife was always like that, Kagome had very little hope for their future felicity. Her brother was capable of good sense when he applied himself. Nothing in _that_ conversation had lead her to believe Hiromi was of similar ability. Higurashi Kie had struggled to regain control of the conversation and her phone after that. She hadn't even heard what Rin's name was yet, but Hiromi pointedly hung up the phone and when Kagome called back, she got nothing but a busy tone. Kagome had made several attempts to call her mother since without success. Hiromi was seemingly ever vigilant and refused to give her family opportunity to bond with their new family member. The secret miko could only hope the mail was getting through, because she kept sending letters, notes, and pictures to her mother so they weren't being left out. If only her mother would call _Kagome_ or stand up to Hiromi, they could get this all straightened out!

Kagome watched the pup mill in the area inside the door. Rin-chan still had trouble with high traffic areas. Their two scents littered the floors and furniture of every room they lived in. Sorting the new from the old was a task, Dr. Manzanita and Sesshoumaru assured her, would become easier with practice. Rin gave a little frustrated yip before shaking her fur a little and doggedly returned to the task at hand.

When they'd first started this game, Rin would occasionally forget what they were about if something else caught the attention of her nose. The pup had discovered the bottle of Kagome's shampoo a little more thoroughly than she'd wanted when the bottle fell from the ledge of the tub onto her tail. The bottle broke when it hit the floor wrong. Katarin very quickly became overwhelmed by the concentrated scent of the liquid inside, especially after she'd somehow managed to get it rubbed thoroughly into the fur of her muzzle and paws.

Kagome nearly gave herself away with a chuckle at the memory. It was important to insure that once she was "hidden" Rin-chan couldn't find her using any other method than tracking scent. When her little pup got a little older, Kagome would need to incorporate her secret gifts to keep Rin from using her ears to track breath and heartbeat instead of scent.

Rin sure was an inquisitive little thing, but she'd pointedly refused to enter the bathroom ever since. Kagome had been required to wash the shampoo out of Rin's delicate fur before washing her again with the special soap supplied by Dr. Manzanita's contacts in the Ohlone tribe. The scent was exceptionally mild and it didn't foam up quite so badly as hers did. It was supposed to be milder on youkai eyes.

While Kagome cleaned up the mess on the floor and every time Kagome went in for her own reasons after that, the pup would sit outside the open door and alternately whine or howl. Sesshoumaru told her the pup was merely insuring that her mother remembered her presence. It was odd to be serenaded while she brushed her teeth or cleaned the luxurious bath tub or whatever her business was in the bathroom, but there was nothing to be done about it until Rin grew to accept that the bathroom wasn't inherently evil and that Kagome couldn't forget her new charge ever. Rin even howled through her showers despite Kagome insuring there was someone to watch and distract the pup while she bathed.

Sesshoumaru insisted it was perfectly normal and reasonable this early in her development. Kagome was the only pack Rin-chan knew. It was likely that even if Sesshoumaru were present, their new pup would still cling hardest to Kagome. That didn't mean Rin held no affection for anyone else, just that Kagome was loved most.

As proved by Rin's love of talking to her papa.

Kagome had set up a Skype account so that pup and new father could see each other shortly after Rin had demanded to talk on the phone the first time she heard him. The yips and growls the two exchanged were fascinating to witness as Rin hadn't managed to say a word a human could understand. She wouldn't be able to until the pup developed enough youki of her own to produce a human form. In the meantime, Kagome watched her mate and pup converse and looked for other ways to socialize the young coyote safely.

Kagome made sure to speak to her pup the same as she would to a human child. Baby talk had proven counter productive to development of proper speech and despite her baby's prolonged inability to speak in a way that Kagome could understand, Rin's intelligence was assured. Most youkai came out of their first year speaking quite well, provided they received proper exposure and education. The secret miko often read aloud when both she and the pup were running low on energy.

She had found that Rin didn't care what the topic was so long as Kagome's voice conveyed her affection and attention to the pup that was always beside her. The good doctor was very grateful for that as they had quickly run through all of the baby books in the first sitting on the first day. Repetition was only a viable teaching technique when the teacher could gauge the student's retention. Before Rin could speak in response to any quizzing, the main purpose of reading together was simply to spend time together.

When their month off was up, Miriam-sensei had dropped by with a laptop linked into the hospital records system. It was heavily secured and only had access to the records Kagome had approval to view. Most families who had a hanyou loved one or lost one, were quick to allow her research once they fully understood what she was about. She hadn't met most of them though. The sponsors were the ones tracking down patients and families to ask for permission. Kagome had still expected to work at the hospital whatever permission granted to adhere to legal privacy guidelines. Rin didn't care if Kagome read her conclusions and theories instead of some picture book so long as it sounded like attention was being paid to the pup always curled up beside her at the computer.

Miriam was only one of their regular visitors.

Many of her closest friends from the hospital took turns delivering the pumped breast milk necessary for Rin-chan's continued good health. As Dr. Manzanita had said, the formula was only a temporary fix. The pup needed something more aligned to her specific needs as a coyote youkai, though she was clearly mixed with some other breed.

Connor made the delivery every Tuesday staying long enough to partake of Kagome's noon time meal and collecting her notes for delivery to the doctors helping her refine suggested solutions. So far most hanyou seemed to benefit most by time spent in their human forms. Finding a gentler method for suppressing inherent youki was a question that needed an answer the more she delved into patient histories. It wouldn't have benefited Jeremy any, but Trevor and at least half of the other hanyou in her studied records would have survived if a solution were known. Kagome was hoping some of the native medicine men, shamans and weather witches might have a viable suggestion. Where technology couldn't help, more holistic means would have to serve.

Gloria stopped by with dinner for Kagome at least two days a week, feeding mother and pup seemed to be her favorite task. She was desperate to cuddle with the coyote youkai who wouldn't give her the time of day. Rin was stand-offish with most people she wasn't particularly familiar with. Plus Kagome was slightly uneasy with Gloria's attention inside her own home and the pup was likely keying off of that.

Cheryl was the real life saver. The arachnid stopped by everyday at random times, delivering more milk for Rin-chan and allowing Kagome to bathe. Katarin adored the spider. Something even Sesshoumaru hadn't been able to explain to Kagome's satisfaction. Rin-chan would chase behind Cheryl, swiping and nipping at her long, silky white braid as it swung with each step behind her calves. Sometimes the spider would sit on the floor and tease Rin-chan with the curled tip and the pup would just lay against her lap and expel a sound so similar to laughter that Kagome couldn't think of it as anything else.

Rin still wouldn't allow anyone but Kagome to feed her, but she would let Cheryl bathe her in the basin next to the tiny sink in the kitchenette. It was amazing and heart-warming and reassuring that her little pup wasn't going to completely isolate herself from everybody. Kagome had worried that just her and a phone dad would predispose the little canine to closing herself off from forming strong attachment to anyone else.

Rin gave a sharp, triumphant bark and raced around the dresser to settle on the floor by Kagome's foot. Wide amber eyes stared adoringly up at Kagome from below her knee. Kagome's grin nearly split her face with her pride at the pup's accomplishment. "Good job, Rin-chan!" the pup rose back to her feet and licked the bare skin of Kagome's ankle playfully. Kagome awarded the pup with a little giggle before dropping to the floor to swipe her pup up in a big hug before placing all four paws back on the ground. It wasn't good to carry around dogs and it wasn't good to keep a baby from learning to crawl or walk. Coyote pups weren't any different. Rin was capable and willing and Kagome wouldn't interfere with it in any way likely to encourage an unhealthy dependency.

"Shall we call papa-Sesshoumaru?" Kagome asked her little girl. Rin began to bark eagerly, fully able to communicate her enthusiasm. She knew exactly what had just been asked and what would follow. It was her favorite time of the day. Kagome's too, to be fully honest. Listening to the two interact kept Kagome's insides meltingly warm. Rin would growl and whine and bark until she had recapped everything that she felt was important which usually ended with a wide yawn and drooping eyes.

That was when Kagome would get her turn. Some nights they would converse in teasing ways reminiscent of the time before Katarin had joined Kagome. Sometimes, Sesshoumaru would comment on something their pup had expressed to him, letting his mate know any concerns raised by the infant coyote's observations or expressions. If no one was around on his end and Kagome was comfortable with the depth of Rin's sleep, they would do something naughty. The constant exposure to their open bond made her more aware of her body's natural response to his desire with an increase in her own.

Kagome had talked herself out of worrying over the residual scent. Her pup could no doubt smell the change in the air after and during their joint actions, but there was little chance Rin could identify the meaning behind it.

Kagome still hadn't stepped in front of the camera when their Skype account was open. There was no way to edit what was visible before her inu lover received it, so he had to make do with her voice in his ear, her reiki thrumming across the world and the pictures she'd sent him before. Sesshoumaru didn't seem to mind and never had trouble making it work for both of them.

Rin scampered off to the traditional futon Kagome used for a bed. She left it out daily as the pup napped often and she would be forever taking it back out. The pup snuggled in the middle, pawing at the silver braid Sesshoumaru had shipped them shortly after receiving the package Kagome had express mailed him.

Sending Katarin's scent had been easy. The only options had been the receiving blankets. Those first few days had been marked with a distinct risk of the pup taking chill because her fur was thin and insufficient for her needs. They'd fought to bring her out of shock and keep her sufficiently warm for nearly a week. Occasionally, they would let her play without the blanket, but she would tire easily and be back in the blankets cuddled close to Kagome in short order. Thankfully, Rin was long past that state now.

Kagome had been a little surprised Sesshoumaru had taken so much longer to supply Rin with his personal scent. While Kagome had taken to utilizing the various measures supplied in the scent box she had treasured, she had thought he would want Rin-chan to know him as separate from her. She didn't think an inu would have such trouble selecting an item full of his scent to send a pup. A pillow case, a blanket or a worn article of clothing would have been sufficient. It would have been enough to at least introduce Rin to the concept of her papa's scent without Kagome's mixed into it.

But Kagome wasn't certain what all went into Sesshoumaru's thought processes when he was deciding what to send their pup. Hair was certainly a better, longer lasting scent object for him to choose than anything cloth. It was naturally imbued with his youki and easily resistant enough to survive the pawing and gnawing of a rambunctious growing youkai pup. The braid was only six inches long and stiffly thick so it couldn't get wrapped around her neck through accident or design.

Rin kept it close whenever Kagome called up her papa-Sesshoumaru. Whether she did this at her own direction or by Sesshoumaru's suggestion, Kagome didn't know. It didn't much matter either way. It was good that Rin associated that scent with Sesshoumaru and that she took it in whenever she chatted with him. It made Sesshoumaru more real in her impressions. Canines believed in their nose more than their eyes.

Just as Kagome was getting read to settle into the blankets beside her eager pup, a knock came at the door. For a moment she just stared in that direction in confusion. There wasn't anybody expected and the usual visitors were mostly at the support group that Kagome was skipping tonight. It wasn't a requirement that she attend every single meeting, but she'd been regularly attending for months. Tonight, she'd decided that she and her pup would both be better served by staying in. Kagome was tired and Rin was overstimulated. Miriam-sensei had run by earlier with three of the other sponsors and Dr. Manzanita to drop off the paper work for naturalization. The process was drawn out, convoluted and utterly necessary. Rin's adoption would go more smoothly if Kagome were a citizen.

It also made sense in that her new clinic was being built in this country. There was little chance that Kagome would leave it for a very long time once it was built. Sesshoumaru had pointed that out to her immediately after she'd first brought the subject up.

Another knock came and finally, Kagome moved to answer the door. Rin whined her disappointment at the delay before scampering after her mother out of curiosity over who it could be. At least, Kagome assumed it was curiosity. It was just as likely her little pup stuck close to her side for little more reason that to ensure her disappointment and displeasure were fully conveyed at having their call to Sesshoumaru delayed.

Kagome refused to feel guilty. Disappointment and delayed gratification were a part of life Katarin was just going to have to get used to. This was hardly likely to be the first time her pup's wants weren't immediately met and this wasn't the harshest method of teaching Rin that fact . The miko opened the door with the infant coyote crowding around her ankles only to freeze in shock. "Momma," she breathed, for on the front stoop, standing in an inch of semi-melted snow, towing one overly large suitcase was the Higurashi matriarch herself.

"Hello, Kagome," Kie smiled and Kagome burst into tears before dashing the two steps separating them and flinging herself on her mother. "I thought you might be in need of me." Strong, warm arms closed around the young woman and stroked through dark wavy hair soothingly. "Come lets go inside before you freeze."

Kagome was only wearing some light cotton shorts and a loose tank top. Rin was a little heat maker and heavier clothing rendered the close contact uncomfortable for both. A questioning growl drew the attention of both females from their teary reunion to the pup anxiously shifting from paw to paw on the threshold, unwilling to step out into the frigid world but eager to explore scent of this new person.

"There's my grandbaby!" Kie smiled as she silently urged Kagome to step back inside so she could follow with her suitcase behind her. "Aren't you just the most wonderful grandbaby there ever was?"

Kagome bent down and picked Rin up to give her mother room to walk in. The pup wriggled around in her arms until she could reach up and lick the salty tears streaming down Kagome's face. She hadn't realized how much she missed her mother until the woman stood right in front of her within reach. "I thought Jii-chan's health required constant watch?" came the unbidden question. Such had been the reason why her mother had been unable to come earlier in the year when Souta made his volatile visit.

"With Hiromi and Souta living at the shrine, I could be spared. Hiromi knows what to do and your grandfather is making great effort to stay on top of his needs while I'm here. He doesn't like her much," Kie told her daughter conspiratorially. "A week after they moved in, he moved out to the well house."

"The Well house?" Kagome gaped in surprise, absently rubbing her cheek over Rin's baby soft fur. The pup could get fussy if Kagome didn't pay her enough attention while around others.

"Yes. He refuses to come up to the house even for meals," Kie continued as she left her luggage inside the door and closed it firmly behind her before unwrapping her scarf from around her neck. Briskly she undid the front of her coat, failing to interrupt the string of words all the while. "We have to take his portion of every meal out there and he insists on eating it off the old sutra covered boards blocking the shaft of the well itself. I made him promise to move back in once the temperature dropped below freezing. I've never seen the building look so clean or well kept. He's even replaced some of the rotting boards that had been a bit questionable for years."

"Is Hiromi really so terrible?" because it was just possible her grandpa was over-reacting. The old man had been rather critical of the younger generations, getting worse with each passing year. Everything was supposedly better in his day, people knew what they were supposed to be. He hadn't been happy with anybody younger than himself since his wife died in Kagome's childhood. Truly, he was a little out of touch.

"Oh honey," Kie murmured sympathetically. "She was truly out of line when you called about Rin-chan. Souta and the rest of us have told her so repeatedly."

"Is that why she hangs up every time I've tried to call you since?" Kagome asked as Rin whined. Kagome couldn't be sure, but she thought the pup was trying to remind her about a certain call they should be making right now. Sesshoumaru was expecting a call sometime in the next few hours. Having her mother present for the call could be a problem.

The Higurashi matriarch would call her daughter by name. Sesshoumaru's hearing would guarantee that he heard just about anything spoken on her end of the phone. Kagome's mother knew Sesshoumaru, so she couldn't call him by any of his names. The fact Kagome was mated wasn't known to her family, but Sesshoumaru didn't deserve to be stood up just because her mother showed up out of the blue. And Rin didn't deserve to have her favorite time of the day postponed indefinitely without a real good reason.

"Hiromi's just going through a difficult time," Kie offered in defense of her new daughter-in-law. "All times of prolonged transition are rough."

"And how dare I try to steal attention from her and Souta," Kagome muttered as she turned from her mother and wandered back into the bedroom. She knew her mother was acting devil's advocate, but Kagome didn't have it in her to sympathize with the woman being discussed. Transition may be rough, as she well knew having moved to two foreign countries since leaving home, but cutting someone off from family was never excusable.

Kagome set Rin down in the futon and reached for the phone plugged in on the little low table next to it. Rin barked happily as the sound of the call connecting reached her perked ears in the blankets. Sesshoumaru picked up and Kagome informed him that they had a surprise visitor so he would only be talking with their daughter on this call. Then the phone was settled gently beside the pup and Kagome retreated from the room but stayed within Rin's view through the doorway.

"What was that?"

"I had just promised Rin-chan a call to her papa," Kagome answered carefully. "We call him everyday and the two converse for a while in the canine language of similar breeds of youkai. She loves it and he enjoys it as well."

"You have a boyfriend?" Kie asked leadingly. Kagome had never even hinted at a romantic relationship of any kind. "A youkai? I would think you wouldn't be open to that sort."

"Why?"

"Because you are miko," her mother returned evenly.

Kagome sighed. It was the first time they'd explicitly acknowledged that each of them knew what she was. Kagome hadn't ever talked about it with anyone but her grandmother that trained her, and she had died before hanyou had ever been a reality in her adolescent view of the world. "He didn't know that until long after the fact," she replied before adjusting her shirt so that the mark was visible to the older woman. Her mother would be the first person after her pup to see it clearly. She'd always made sure to keep it covered or obscured around people.

"He marked you? Who is this person?" Kie demanded of her daughter. A marking was permanent and indicated a more serious relationship than a mother could conceive of being left out of. "When did this happen?" How long had Kagome kept her family out of the loop on this part of her life.

Kagome snorted, "He was drunk off his ass and dosed me. It wasn't exactly voluntary on my part and he still doesn't know my name, and we've come to agreement that it should stay that way for another few years."

"What? Why?" Kie obviously wasn't questioning why Kagome would meet the youkai that trapped her again. Permanence and extended life on an amazingly small planet made it incredibly impossible for one mate to run forever from the other. Though Kie seemed ready to run in the other room and steal the phone from the yipping pup to give the male a piece of her mind.

"His father is very wealthy and incredibly overbearing. If I became known to him as a miko, I would never be able to complete what I've set out to," Kagome answered. "He plans to break with his father's pack eventually, but we're waiting until I'm established and his younger brother is done with school so we'll be better able to support ourselves."

"Younger brother? What would his younger brother have to do with it?"

"Both plan to separate into the same pack," Kagome sighed.

"You didn't answer who," Kie reminded the secret miko. "You did not tell me when."

"Since shortly before I left Japan," Kagome answered promptly. "And I don't want to ruin your relationship with him right now. You know him in other capacities and he has grown and changed from that starting point. So have I."


	38. A Family Affair

Lost: One X-mas Spirit. If found kick it in the shin firmly and inform the wayward bastard I'm well on my way to finding a replacement! Reward: Adoption rights to one Wayward X-mas Spirit, Slightly used.

I've seem to have misplaced my holiday cheer. Do you have any to spare?

AS several people have now expressed confusion over the last line of chapter 36, I have decided to alleviate your selective reading problem. The Line reads: "Sesshoumaru smiled and trailed behind her to supervise the introduction of his new pup to the only member of his pack that would never get to meet her." To spoon feed the reality to those of you who missed it, Sesshoumaru's only pack member who will never meet Rin is his late grandfather whose death was discussed in Chapter 22. The elder inu's death precludes any chance of meeting the new pup. Thank you.

P.S. Kagome has a fantasy in this chapter!

Calendar: February.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**A Family Affair**

Kagome's mother had stayed with them through the holidays of Christmas and New Year with no sign of returning home. All of January passed by with Kie building increasingly strong bonds with the coyote pup while Kagome's regular life revolved around her.

It had left Kagome slightly uneasy. She loved her mother and respected what the older woman had to impart about many subjects including mothering a very young child without obvious support. She just wasn't used to anybody infiltrating their opinions into every action taken in her everyday life. Kagome had grown independent and having that independence quietly curbed by her mother's misplaced urge to help...was hard.

Kie had taken over the cooking, showing off her greater skill at first finding, then preparing traditional Japanese ingredients at every meal shared with visiting friends or held privately. Kagome had long acknowledged her mother's superiority in the task, but she hadn't much enjoyed having it so thoroughly rubbed in by all her friends. Rin was happily too young to partake and still only accepted sustenance from the miko, otherwise the new mother might have run mad. She knew she was being overly sensitive about it, but she'd been feeling a little fragile for a long while about the strangest things. Besides, she well knew her mother didn't mean for the gesture to be taken as such which made Kagome feel worse.

Kagome never claimed to be the best house keeper there was, but having her mother once again prove her capability so far superior to the woman of their little house depressed her too. Things just seemed so much cleaner when Higurashi Kie finished with them than when Kagome did it herself. The windows sparkled with no streaks and that stubborn ring in the bathtub had been firmly rubbed out within hours of the woman's arrival. Kagome still had no idea how she'd done it, just that she had.

Their clothes and blankets smelled fresher and looked brighter after their first washing during her mother's visit. Which actually wasn't well received by Rin-chan. Kagome smiled gently to herself. Sesshoumaru had explained that changes in the accustomed scents found in a canine youkai's home were generally not easily accepted by one so young. It required constant re-cataloging, something both tedious and difficult a Rin's age. And bedding was better left longer between washes than her mother was allowing. Her mother's refusal to leave the futon out all day as Kagome had been doing was equally as difficult on her pup.

The soft bedding had been the pup's place to escape to when whatever company they had got to be too much. It was a safe comforting place that smelled of no one else but Kagome and Rin. All of Kagome's friends knew to leave the small pup alone when she resorted to the pile of blankets and would quickly leave after she ran to it. The new grandma didn't know that and simply hadn't left.

Katarin was slowly learning that family couldn't necessarily be chosen and her discussions with Sesshoumaru weren't offering the pup the answers she wanted. The male had told the small female that if she wanted to keep Kagome, she was stuck keeping her mother. At least, that's what he assured Kagome he'd said.

Rin had been decidedly grumpy after that conversation but quickly resigned herself to keeping Kie. She even began to let the older Higurashi the same liberties she had allowed Cheryl. The spider had been a great help with that too.

The two older women got along as well as Kagome could hope. Both women desired to thrash her distant, unknown mate for his method of initiating the relationship and both had insisted on comparing notes in hopes of discovering his identity. As precaution, Kagome had refused to contact him through Skype and stopped referring to him by name when anyone was present outside of Rin.

Kagome loved her mother and appreciated her desire to protect a daughter who had been so wronged, but she'd have preferred it if her mother had thought a little less about reaming her mate and a little more about supporting Kagome without being so intrusive. In this way, Cheryl was a better comfort than her mother. Beyond the one time theft of her phone to scold Sesshoumaru, Cheryl's main efforts and attention had been directed to listening to Kagome and directing her towards the help she needed to work through everything.

Cheryl had at least acknowledged that Kagome didn't need to hear about how much she'd been wronged every hour of the day. That one incident was not her defining moment and failing to allow that truth was as detrimental to Kagome's mental health as ignoring it completely had been. It was like Souta projecting his selfishness onto her for not attending his wedding then turning around and apologizing for that view with semi-hollow words.

Trust had been broken, but it was a bond Kagome didn't need as desperately as the one with her mother and the developing one with her mate. She didn't need one constantly attacking and belittling the other right now. Rin didn't need it either.

Kagome rubbed at her temple and took a deep breath of the silent air around her. Cheryl had kidnapped her mother and pup for a field trip out to the new house and property. They'd been slowly working Rin up to longer and longer periods of time away from Kagome in effort to prepare her for a return to hospital work.

Another hanyou had turned up in the emergency room, but the poor thing had been so unstable she didn't survive the first three hours in residence. Kagome never got to meet her before she was pronounced dead of blunt force trauma to the chest. She was fourteen and hit by a car. It was a hit and run. And they'd better keep running for eternity if they wanted to continue living. The hanyou had been a miracle baby after four miscarriages and her daddy was out for blood and quite unhinged. Not that Kagome blamed him with a pup of her own. With a reality that someday, that might be her daughter run down by a moron with a driver's license.

She sighed and turned from the empty door that had seen the exit of her pup just a few minutes earlier. Cheryl had insisted on taking Kie and Rin out to the parcel of land that would soon be home. Rin needed to get comfortable with the property and Higurashi Kie was eager to see the house. They'd been out a few times during the process of purchasing the land and planning out where the house would be. Rin liked the kitsune clan next door and the Ohlone were proud to have a Coyote pup moving into the area. She was safe there with Cheryl to watch and anything Kagome's mother did to the house plans could be undone, redone, or left as is later.

Kagome needed the break. And so did Sesshoumaru.

Kagome felt too uncomfortable to talk much with Sesshoumaru while her mother was around and this reluctance extended to any other type of intimacy no matter how craved by either party. Sesshoumaru didn't speak over much about the lack in their contact on the occasions when he was given the chance. It was well understood that neither wanted to be caught in some naughty act by Mrs. Higurashi at any point in time. Someday Sesshoumaru would have to face Kie as his in-law and the last thing he wanted added to the negative side of her esteem was the memory of him perpetuating anything close to long-distance debauchery.

But mama Higurashi was out and not to return for hours. Kagome settled into the futon she'd managed to convince her mother not to put up this morning. She and Sesshoumaru had made a dream date which wasn't nearly as maudlin as it sounded. Mates could influence dreams if both managed to sleep at the same time. Usually Kagome's insomnia interfered with it as much as the difference in their natural sleep cycles based on geography. Sesshoumaru had been keeping himself awake the last few days in hopes that once she sent him the signal to help her under he would follow shortly after.

Youkai may not need as much sleep as humans once they reached adulthood, but they needed some and the need was usually increased by stress or exertion. He'd finally started learning Alma's enameling technique and was finding it as difficult as he'd found working with wood in the beginning. He needed the release of a bond inspired dream as much as she did.

Taking another deep, quiet breath before rubbing her cheek into the pillow, Kagome sent her reiki across the world to tickle along her inu's senses. She just had time to pull the braid infused with Sesshoumaru's scent close to her nose before he responded with that powerful, vibratory pulse of his youki that was so effective in putting her under. She closed her eyes to fall deep into sleep.

And opened her eyes on her Sesshoumaru influenced dream.

They didn't exactly have the same dream. What she saw and experienced would not be that same as his. Mates did not read each other's minds even on the subconscious level. They did not share emotions. What really happened, as far as science was concerned, was the sensation of a distant mate's aura would cause physical sensation that the unconscious mind translated into dream experience.

It was fairly powerful when done intentionally while they were both conscious as Kagome could more than attest to from their previous play dates and trysts. The intention behind a youki caress wasn't always properly conveyed, but it was always felt. Other bound couples might not be as sensitive, and her sensitivity might erode with uninterrupted access, but the sensation was always pleasant whatever the mode.

When he sent out his youki in her sleep, as he had done while she was injured, the effect on Kagome's dreams was interesting but subtle. When done while they were both unconscious, it could only be described as erotic.

Kagome's dreaming eyes opened in the setting her mind had seemingly selected at random. She saw a book shelf packed with books that were both nondescript and familiar. A swift glance found a book on Impressionist painters clutched in her hands and a further look down revealed her high school uniform, the pleated skirt reaching to her knees, the white blouse tucked smoothly in at her waist and the pointless scarf slightly askew after a day of nervous note-taking and boredom inducing lectures. Even as a first year student, she'd had better things to do than worry over a stupid knot being off-center.

It didn't surprise her that she found herself in her high school library. A number of her Sesshoumaru influenced visions were some play or spin on the stereotypical, juvenile fantasies. Once she'd been dressed the part of the librarian, with glasses and bun to boot. Another time he'd been a teacher and she'd been his student.

The reason, or so Kagome believed when she bothered to think about it, had to do with a story Sesshoumaru had related shortly before their first mutual nap. Apparently, when he'd first graduated from middle school into an all-male school of his alpha's choice, his grandfather had teased him with all the seemingly impossible love affairs he wouldn't be having. Trysting with a teacher or another student somewhere in the school. At the time he'd scoffed at the taunts, seeing no reason to desire such nonsense as girls were non-entities to him at the time. He'd seen no reason to rush into the sexual phase of his life before Hiroyuki's bid to dictate a mating for his eldest son.

The story had made an impression, mostly of the love and understanding the elder male had for Sesshoumaru. Or so it had been at the time. The hentai nature of the fantasies must have made a more subtle impression to continue influencing her dreams this long.

Sesshoumaru loved hearing about the dreams she had under the influence of him as much as he loved sharing his. Kagome smiled to herself in the dream. She enjoyed hearing how enthusiastically he loved on her in his dreams. His fantasies were always so elaborately romantic, sometimes she wondered if he made them up after the fact because he wanted her to respond positively. They were talking about fantasies, so it wasn't exactly a lie if he invented a new one on the phone with her. It was still influenced by her and quite frankly she wouldn't hold it against him if that were the truth.

Kagome sighed in her dream as she turned the large art book so that the title was facing away from her chest before clutching it close in muscle memory. Sedately she followed the seeming wall of books until she stepped out from between two shelves into the open space filled with chairs and tables. The place was naturally empty. Kagome wasn't an exhibitionist even in her fantasies and her school library had never been particularly popular with students.

Sunlight filtered in from the high windows along the west wall, slanting in a distinctly late afternoon angle. The dusty light filled the room with a kind of nostalgia that choked on the fluorescent bulbs common in schools and offices. All the outer walls were chock full of shelves and books. The shelves rose high above her head, but none so high as those under the sun-filled windows.

Three tables in and two rows to the right, found Sesshoumaru with his long hair tied loosely back and falling over the shoulder of the dark male uniform common to the high school she'd attended. The typical lines of the long sleeved shirt, looked better on him than any boy she'd ever seen in it. Kagome wasn't terribly certain what he looked like now, given he dropped out of the public eye since shortly after marking her, but in College and in the pictures she'd found when his grandfather died, he'd had nice strong broad shoulders. His trim waist offset them nicely, keeping him from seeming intimidating as some of the more stocky, well-muscled high school guys tended to be. He was lean in a way that conveyed power without bulkiness.

Looking at him, you got the distinct impression that he was lethal, but more from the sense that his intelligence could be so turned than the youkai power of his body. For some reason, that appealed to her more because she knew the vulnerabilities hidden behind those sharp eyes.

Naturally, her dream self approached the boy looking over a book with glossy pages, his graceful fingers clutching one corner while the other hand rested atop a stack of books beside him. Kagome knew the approximate age this so-called fantasy was supposedly taking place.

She'd had a paper on Impressionist painters in her first year of high school slightly before her epiphany concerning hanyou medicine. It had been the last time she'd cared to look at the males around her for a romantic partner. Kagome had been as curious about sex and dating at that age as any of her other girl friends had been. After she realized the need for hanyou medicine, that curiosity had been suffocated by the desperate drive to save lives that seemed so much more important than satisfying a selfish, unnecessary biological urge. She didn't regret that choice, but sometimes she wondered if her life would have been completely different if a boy had come in before she'd made that decision to pursue a medical career to save hanyou.

As she got closer, she observed him turning a wide page with studied focus, clearly more than a little interested in his subject. Not all of her fantasies with Sesshoumaru ended in full on sex, though it disappointed her mate when it didn't. One fantasy, spawned by a conversation about Trish's desired costume for Halloween, had found her dressed in a vaguely Lolita inspired outfit full of lace, ruffles and petticoats. Trish had wanted to be a french maid because the costume had so many pretty layers to it. Kagome supposed the scandalized reaction of her grandparents made the idea even more desirable when first told she couldn't wear it.

Sesshoumaru had chuckled over Trish's stubbornness concerning the subject when he told her. Her subconscious had strangely latched onto the idea and she'd come into her dream stifled by a superfluous number of fine layers that her dream Sesshoumaru couldn't find the way through to her skin. He had such trouble the dream had ended with her still laughing at the absurdity of the situation.

Kagome's lips twitched slightly before she made verbal contact with her latest dream Sesshoumaru. "What are you reading?"

The inu turned to look at her, clearly startled by her approach and subsequent vocalized curiosity. It was so cute to see him inattentive to his surroundings that her dreams almost always included that single stunned moment. Then his eyes took her in and widened considerably from their cool narrowed gaze. His expression turned her on to the fact that he must be reading something very risque, though what would be so provocative in a high school library escaped her ken. But she was thinking logically in a dream.

Two steps closer and she was able to read the titles on the spines stacked up under his inactive hand. _The Joy of Sex_ was sitting atop two books that were clearly about tantric sex philosophy and technique. What such books would be doing in a school was beyond her, but it was clear he hadn't been expecting anyone to approach close enough to notice what he was investigating. Kagome couldn't help the grin that twitched the corners of her mouth upward even as heat flushed her face. Clearly this dream would not be ending in hilarity or ticklish play.

"Hnn," came her answer after he noticed the expression on her face. Another step closer brought the pictures of his open book into her purview. Kagome didn't know how she recognized the book from pictures she'd never seen before, but he'd clearly been studiously perusing the Kama Sutra. Suddenly, heat was building between her legs at the idea of this seemingly straight-laced Sesshoumaru breaking the rules with naughty books in a school library.

"How did you even manage to find those in a high school library?" for some reason her dry mouth spit out the question even though no answer would be forthcoming or even desired. She didn't care how dream Sesshoumaru managed to sneak a stack of inappropriate books into a high school library. Kagome wasn't even concerned with why he'd felt completely safe flipping the pages of one of those books in the middle of said library. It was her dream and the working of her inner mind was clearly a little off-rails. She knew if she allowed it, her dream Sesshoumaru would give a viable answer, one she'd thought up herself. She was no longer in high school so the logistics of smuggling such contraband into such a place was hardly a problem worth solving.

He didn't bother to answer. Instead his expression changed to a dubious smirk. She found his hands clasped around her waist before he somehow wedged her between his chair and the table in front of him. He wrenched the art book from her hands and pushed her up onto the table cutting into the back of her thighs until her bottom planted on the smooth, sexual picture he'd last been looking at. "What on earth?" she couldn't help asking as her formerly knee length pleated skirt suddenly turned out to be much shorter. Sitting down proved her skirt wasn't long enough to cover what modesty demanded, especially not with a male firmly planted in front of her and holding her legs open.

"Hn," he commented as his nose twitched with the obvious change in her scent. "Intriguing," came the follow up and Kagome imagined he was expressing fascination with her reaction to knowing Sesshoumaru read sexual texts in an otherwise innocuous setting. "This Sesshoumaru desires to explore this situation," his gold eyes glanced up at her surprised gaze. "If you do not wish to allow it, speak so now." Kagome said nothing and was partially convinced that she wouldn't have said anything in the real life version out of shock. He was so very straightforward about this, his candor robbed her of breath let alone speech.

Sesshoumaru hadn't risen from his seat, so when he leaned close with his narrow amber eyes staring up into her face, moving on in the absence of protest, his chin met her covered belly button and his teeth closed about the first button visible above the waist of her skirt. He gave a rather purring growl before he pulled the first plastic disk free of the thread that kept it close to the fabric. "Hey!" the minor damage to her imaginary clothing spurred a minute moment of disapproval. It was a pointless vocalization of a feeling that had no place in a dream. The whole point of these little fantasies was to dispel reality, get a little naked and hump like uninhibited rabbits since nobody could see any of what was going on anyway. There was no shame in fantasizing and no way anybody would know exactly what flipped her imaginary switches if she didn't share them with anyone.

Apparently her protest was part of the fantasy because dream Sesshoumaru's smirk widened into a grin before he leaned forward to pop another button with his teeth. His left hand disappeared from her hip to make its presence known at the apex of her thighs, tugging her incredibly insufficient skirt up to her waist and ripping her panties from their appointed task. She was naked from her bobby socks to her bunched belt of a skirt. A moment later and Sesshoumaru grew tired of his teasing game with her buttons and her blouse hung open from a swift yank that threw buttons across the room to skitter under furniture.

The uniform clad male slid forward in his chair allowing him to reach higher up her torso. His very busy mouth closed in on a covered nipple while his hands tugged the shirt down her arms to join the fabric that used to be a viable skirt. Those same efficient hands swept up her back to loosen her cotton bra, revealing the rest of her skin. Sesshoumaru's tongue was certainly more intriguing against her breast without the fabric blocking her from feeling it. His left hand molded and massaged the other half of her breasts, warming the chilled skin and arousing her willingness further. It was her dream and she wanted to follow it through to the end.

The right hand that had clutched at her shoulder to keep her against his mouth finally moved down her body and circled around to her front before finding the warm leaking spot her panties were supposed to guard. Sesshoumaru's thumb mashed unexpectedly against that sensitive spot that ached for attention and she near jumped out of her skin.

Kagome couldn't figure out what to do with her hands. She'd tried setting them on the table beside her, but one hand stuck to the glossy pages under her rump and the other nearly knocked over the stack of sex books Sesshoumaru had been guarding so carefully. She lifted them both up almost immediately, distracted from her lover's attack on her skin and nerves before he fully captured her attention with the sudden sting of his teeth scraping her distended nipple.

When she remembered her hands one was gripping the muscles of his arm tightly and the other was burrowing through his long silver hair. Miraculously the simple thong that had held it back from his face was still in place. How his hair managed to remain so well-ordered even with the clenching and mussing of her hand, was a mystery she wanted solved. Now.

Without warning, Sesshoumaru pulled back from her breast with one long suck that had her nipple following the action until it audibly popped free because he had gotten too far away. "Hn, good you are primed for this," her dream lover began, confusing her. "There were a few positions I did not think were feasible."

Kagome blinked at him, barely understanding just what he meant. "Are you saying you want to try some of the things in the book on me?"

"Of course," came the prompt answer. She was imediately distracted by the fingers still stroking her inner thigh. She finally realized that her hips were involuntarily trying to gain coitus with the two fingers lingering closest to her wet pussy. "You are ready for it and seemingly willing." She couldn't deny that as the subject of adventurous sexual positions left her flooding over his lower hand with arousal. "I will however insist on more overt forms of consent."

Kagome couldn't help the smile. Only her dream Sesshoumaru would ask for her permission in the middle of foreplay. "You are-" he leaned forward and nibbled gently at the underside of her tender breast, breaking off her chain of thought thoroughly.

He pulled back, massaging hands never leaving her and looked meaningfully in her slightly dazed eyes. "I am still awaiting tangible permission to continue, to go further," he rumbled darkly.

Kagome wondered how long he would wait before he stopped with the ruse and just got on with whatever he had planned. On one hand she wanted him to just get it over with. This was a dream, a fantasy had for the shear purpose of releasing pent up desire. On the other hand her psyche could little afford even in her fantasies to allow another joining with Sesshoumaru that was not wholly conducted with her consent. True, her dream Sesshoumaru had groped and exposed her, but it was one thing to be naked and touched by someone she was coming to care about very strongly and another to be penetrated, breached and otherwise manipulated sexually.

The one act that took her choice away had created changes in her life and damage to her soul that was still attempting to heal. There was no chance even a fantasy would bring her pleasure without her voluntary participation being fully spelled out. She couldn't let her dream Sesshoumaru act without being very clear that she was willing to continue and enjoy herself fully. But she likewise hadn't the coherency to speak her consent or think of any other method of communication to convey it.

Sesshoumaru stood up and kissed her, stealing her breath and distracting her fully from the question and the confusion it stirred up. When he released her mouth, she found her hands settled over the belt at his waist. "Release this Sesshoumaru?" he requested, a slight whine tinging the words with his desire. This was to be her method of consent. If she were willing to go on, she would undo his belt and open his pants to give him access to her private parts.

Kagome nearly smiled when instead of immediately loosening the buckle she reached instead to press against the straining flesh concealed by the front panels of his slacks. Dream Sesshoumaru groaned, a deep growling rumble that shook his body. He leaned forward to support his weight on the arms he planted to either side of her. His hips began an uncontrolled effort to rub her hand more firmly into his confined length.

Kagome leaned back at his increased proximity. His jerky movements threatened to clunk their heads together even as his golden eyes pleaded with her to stop teasing and give consent, to release him so that they both might find climax with the strong spear of his flesh stretching the moist tissues of her sex. A particularly sharp thrust slapped the back of her hand against her exposed lips bringing her pussy almost into contact with the male that wanted to explore her inside. She jumped in surprise at the abrupt contact and wished that the sting was derived from other things than her own hand rubbing Sesshoumaru's groin through his pants.

As powerful as it made her feel that he was waiting for her consent, as much as his request for permission soothed an anxiety she never seemed to shake, she wanted to move this fantasy along. Teasing him was teasing her something awful.

"Hurry, sweet one, before the librarian comes back," he whispered huskily in her ear. Kagome started a little at the threat. There were never any extra players in her world of illusions. She relished the naughtiness of getting carnal in imaginary public places because they couldn't be walked in on or caught. "You know Kie returns at the end of the day to lock the place up."

Kagome nearly chuckled to herself. The Librarian who would interrupt them was her mother. Her subconscious was warning her that time was limited. She would only have the afternoon if Katarin could handle the separation. If Rin got fussy too quickly Cheryl would bring them back.

The warning well-noted and quickly heeded, she returned her wandering hand to his belt and struggled to undo the buckle. Eventually she succeeded to quickly move on to the button and zipper. Suddenly he was free and buried deep inside her. Just as fast she found he had laid her out on her side atop the book and table with one knee propped over his shoulder and her opposite thigh held flat against the surface under her.

Sesshoumaru's eyes had changed, red hues stared down at her vulnerable body as he paused maddeningly. His left hand pricked the skin of her knee where it held her down and the other hand propped himself up from the table behind her. His stoic face turned to plant his lips against the inside of her leg over his shoulder before he drew back and began to pound her into powerful orgasm. Her vision exploded with pleasure and as always seems to happen in their fantasies, the dream faded way into true sleep. The rest more satisfying for having released so much tension in orgasm.

She'd needed the state of complete relaxation only achieved after climax. Living with her mother was stressful, no matter how much she loved the older woman. Kagome was more than ready for her mom to go home. Six weeks was, perhaps not too long under different circumstances, but Kagome was tired of her constant presence, her flitting around with her efforts to be helpful that only made Kagome feel inferior and flawed. It wasn't her intent, but intention didn't make the results any different.

But Kagome wasn't thinking of that as the feel of Sesshoumaru's youki followed her into the darkness in a warm, comforting embrace. She wasn't consciously thinking of anything and that was certainly better than most her efforts to sleep had been in the last few weeks.


	39. A Snowy Afternoon

Welcome back to the world of PC.

My holiday spirit is still on life support, but I wish you all enjoy the season and the reason for all the celebrations this time of year. (the reason is **HOPE**!)

One of my favorite reviewers suggested I make doubly certain to stress that Sesshoumaru and Kagome did NOT share the same fantasy in the last chapter. What they each had (Sesshoumaru's fantasy remains unrelated) was a dream influenced by external stimuli, like incorporating the sound of an alarm clock in the dream you are currently having to avoid waking up. We know their shared bond allows physical sensation to travel across the world. We know they can feel each other's aura when they reach out to each other from previous chapters. Therefore, we know they'd be able to feel each other and react to each other in their sleep. They do NOT share thoughts with telepathy at any time.

Calendar: late April.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**A Snowy Afternoon**

Sesshoumaru's eyes trailed after Trish's exuberant form as she flit through the trees outside the loading dock of the Maxwell's home. The weather had grown increasingly cold as they eased toward winter in the southern hemisphere. More than one full turning of the seasons had passed since Trish had reached out to Sesshoumaru and the adults in her life had come together to make life better for her.

He still didn't know what had transpired before she came to live with her grandparents. Trish never spoke of the time prior to moving into their lives. Alma and Walter didn't confide in the inu and he never asked questions, but he was there for her should she need his ear. And he would be even after his sub-pack left Australia.

The little girl giggled as she ducked behind a bush nearly snatched bare of leaves by the biting, bitter wind that blew over the area. Most of the trees clawed at the sky in hopes of warmth and a return of spring. In its way, the landscape was solemn and lonely. Gray and brown were the only colors to be seen outside of Trish's brilliant scarlet coat and garish orange mittens.

Coming out here for a winter picnic had been the reward she'd asked for when her teachers had communicated her current academic standing. The official marks hadn't been reported yet, but Trish had managed to surpass all expectations and aced no less than three of her four troublesome subjects since Australia Day in January. She still struggled and still got teased about her soft, short hair, but the months had seen a decided increase in her effort and significant growth to her hair.

Instead of the cut too short for a pixie, she was closer to a rounded bob, and the child's face was well-favored by the newer look. First impressions were difficult to overcome, but the almost complete transformation of her person now that she spoke and even smiled had served Trish well around her peers. As her academic skills grew to match with her classmates', her confidence built to healthier levels. As her stutter continued to smooth out without being met with whatever abuse had silenced her, Trish grew more communicative with all around her.

When first she met Inuyasha, Trish feared and hid from his boisterous words. Now she yelled right back, Sesshoumaru smirked to himself, proving the hanyou argued on an incredibly childish level. Kikyou had scared her too, now the little girl loved to spend an afternoon or evening with the elder female, doing girl things like braiding hair and applying colored powder to their cheeks. She had grown so much in just a year.

Watching the child play some secret game with the watery light and the chilly breeze that waved the branches and encouraged any sane creature to escape indoors, Sesshoumaru wondered about his own pup across an ocean and the ways she would change before he met her. Already he'd missed out on the pup's first steps and first lessons in tracking scent. He'd missed her first encounter with some of the stronger bottled scents used in the world and her first laugh.

He'd even missed her first New Year and Christmas which was a bigger, more celebrated event among Westerners. His mate had sent him a gift from them both commemorating the mile stone. Rin's paw print stood out in purple on white canvas surrounded by his mate's hand prints. The mother's prints created a heart centered on the paw print under some very simple yet powerful words. "The young fill the hearts of family." Sesshoumaru smiled on a fogging breath. He'd added his own larger hand prints to over lap the smaller feminine set. It was her intention to include him in the holiday project, communicated so clearly by the pad of ink she sent with it.

Sesshoumaru had intended the finished project find a home in his room, but Kikyou caught sight of it and stole it for the living room wall. Two weeks later, she and Inuyasha had created their own version to hang in companionable proximity. Theirs was missing the print of a smaller member, but it made Sesshoumaru realize that both were works in progress. It likewise made it more apparent that despite the separate canvases, the two were related. Two families growing side by side, but part of the same pack.

It was the way inu packs were meant to be. Families that shared a common blood linked through instinct and genuine feeling, hope for the future and security in the strength of the whole. What amazed him, was that this little off-chute of the greater Taishou pack was so much healthier than the whole _because_ it was separated from the ties that were supposed to make it robust against the weaknesses found in smaller clans.

Inuyasha and Kikyou were still not completely bonded in the way of full mates yet. Sesshoumaru was still held separate from his mate and now his pup. She had still not established herself or a working theory about viable hanyou treatments or therapy. She was a fledgling, testing her wings. Knowledge and theory were present, practical application was lacking. But they were all better off without the closer watch of Taishou Hiroyuki.

A harsh scrabbling of artificial fibers dragging over rough bark alerted the pensive inu of the enthusiastic attack of juvenile mischief. She came at him with a flurry of collected, crispy leaves and dried grasses. Sesshoumaru wasn't precisely certain what Trish hoped to accomplish by running headlong at him like that, but he swung her up off her feet once in range of his arms and spun her around to the music of childish laughter. The child's laughter was part terrified scream and excited squeal, pitched high enough that he almost winced occasionally to hear it close up. But he couldn't feel that way today.

The open sky gave the sound room to dissipate and he'd needed the cheering up as much as she deserved the reward. Trish could have invited anyone on this impromptu picnic. She could have chosen anywhere to go. Instead, she'd demanded only Sesshoumaru and named the Maxwells' land as the place. Neither choice had surprised anyone who knew her well, though Sesshoumaru had expected she'd invite more than just himself.

Trish was rather attached to Inuyasha and Kikyou. She had made a number of friends at her school and there were three children in the same neighborhood as her grandparents' house that had been to visit her increasingly often in recent months. He'd expressed his confusion over the limited list of attendees to his flatmates, Kikyou had simply given him a knowing smile and suggested he accept it. Clearly he was Trish's favorite person and this was what she wanted.

It worried Sesshoumaru some, The little girl's increasing attachment to him. He would always offer her an ear to listen, but soon all the support she would gain would have to be received by phone.

Taishou Hiroyuki had finally decided to call them home. There were only two months left to them on the great continent down under. The little pack that had grown strong with closeness was about to be tested by separation. Kikyou would return to her family home, Inuyasha would naturally return to the Taishou estate and Sesshoumaru would return to exile in his Tokyo penthouse. Their daily interactions would cease as Sesshoumaru often went days, if not weeks between visits to the ancestral seat. He would almost lose all contact with Kikyou entirely as they both wandered in circles that never met or overlapped.

Perhaps Inuyasha would be affected the worst. He'd had three years to interact with his chosen female without the hindrance of the alpha. The hanyou had enjoyed unfettered access without suffering the stress of parental disapproval and their various machinations to interfere. He'd been allowed to be himself without familial expectations concerning his achievements or life style. To go back into the cage of his mother's doting and Hiroyuki's paternal dictatorship would be rough, like re-caging an animal once released into the wild after rescue.

The battles that would ensue over every subject of smothering would be volatile, violent and far more prevalent than they had been previously. It would, in all likelihood expedite their severance from the greater pack. Advising caution would only succeed in annoying the hanyou more.

The best thing Sesshoumaru could think of to temporarily stem that inevitable end was to see if the alpha and mothers could be persuaded to let his brother get an apartment. Inuyasha likely wouldn't be able to live with Kikyou in Japan unless _she_ were the one to acquire the space they shared, highly unlikely on her income. Her family were not about to approve of her living with her half youkai lover in Japan as they didn't approve of it now. As Sesshoumaru understood it, her family believed she was rooming with two females, though how she explained the delay in their return was unknown.

He released Trish and she took off out of sight with a cheerful giggle.

His mate had been sympathetic but suggested he wait before making plans and solving problems that hadn't developed yet. She reminded him that there was a support network for him to rely on in Tokyo. The sanctuary families hadn't been tested with this particular situation, but they had protected hanyou from their own families before. Shiori was an illustration of this point. The custody battle had turned brutal before things ended. Her mother had been severely beaten and barely made it to the hospital before slipping into a coma. The family had thought custody would just revert to the fools who had violently eliminated the opposition, but the Hojos had stepped in as had a number of other families familiar with her plight. There had been witnesses to the assault on Shiori's mother and the whole web of support had pooled together to finance a killer legal team that kept the little half bat out of the hands of those who desired to use her. She had then been placed with the family she had shielded from the earthquakes after the tsunami.

Sesshoumaru had followed the case as closely as possible from another country. He'd interrogated anyone who might have heard anything, praying that the child would be saved from that type of use and abuse. Her life was difficult enough without adding that kind of hardship to things. She shouldn't have to fear her blood-kin when just living to adulthood was such an impossible task.

Four hanyou he'd never met had succumbed to their genetic difficulties with disease. He only knew of them because he kept up with the news among the Sanctuary families. Added to the two he had learned about through his mate and that was six lives lost in the three years Sesshoumaru had been down under. Or rather six within the sphere of his knowledge.

Thinking of it that way, he could well comprehend his mate's impatience for progress.

"Catch me!" came Trish's exuberant voice from the sky. A swift glance upward informed him that the little girl had somehow ascended the body of a tree and launched herself at him. Golden eyes evaluated the gap between them, ever shrinking even as his thoughts flashed by in milliseconds. He could successfully snatch the child out of the air with even less warning. Youkai speed and strength ensured his reflexes were enough to make this a mundane easy task. The expression of absolute trust on her face stole his breath away.

There was no doubt in his mind that Trish would wear that same expression if he weren't youkai, if he weren't as capable of reaching out and cradling her to the ground so that she landed safely. The height she'd achieved wouldn't cause serious damage, but she could break an ankle or an arm if she met the earth at the wrong angle. Sesshoumaru knew that she didn't know that. That the distance seemed more for a child of her age and experience.

When you are so very little, everything else seems so much bigger. To her, the inu youkai was a giant and sometimes he wished he saw himself the way she did, but he knew that even giants were fallible. Two years previous had certainly proved that when the only giant of his childhood succumbed to radiation.

Things always seemed to happen to him in April. It had been April when the courts had called him in to pay for the juvenile crimes he'd committed against the paparazzi. April had been the time his father had delivered his ultimatum about mating after college. April had been the month he marked and promptly lost his mate. And April had been the month he'd lost a grandfather. Now it was the month in which the end of his freedom had been scheduled. Oh, they wouldn't go back to Japan until June, but they'd been notified of the recall in April.

Outstretched arms connected and brought the squealing little girl close to his chest before releasing her to support herself on her own two feet. Trish giggled again and took off. Sesshoumaru circumspectly removed himself from the close vicinity of all the trees. No reason to inspire the child to leap again.

His mate had told him he was being silly, April held no greater significance than any other month. He was just more aware of it because of associations with school changeovers and certain milestones that coincided with end of terms. If the school year ended in May, that would be the month he associated all these happenings with.

As his life soldiered away from ties to school years and schooling, the stronger associations would be pointless and no longer enforced. After all, he became a father in October and saved his teacher a year before that, also in October. He made his first substantial breakthrough in getting to know his mate in a November. His first commission was sold in the Autumn, in no way near the month of April. His mate was right in her way. When he thought about it, things happened when they happened regardless of the time of year.

Trish ran into him from behind with such force he was obliged to take a step forward to prevent her bruising herself. Her arms went around his hips as she grasped at his clothing and laughed at him quietly before going silent with a tighter grip. "Are you happy now?" she asked him, voice muffled by the small of his back. "You've been sad. Kiki said it was the time of year. That your daddy had been mean to you and that you were all being forced to leave," her voice trailed of unhappily before she rallied bravely on. "You made me feel better when I was sad and I wanted to do the same for you, because that's what friends do."

Sesshoumaru's breath caught in his chest in surprise and awe. He hadn't realized she knew their sub-pack was leaving. He was unaware that she'd been able to sense his melancholy and anxiety, but he shouldn't have been. Trish was very sensitive and observant. She worried. A child he had sheltered was offering equal shelter for him. It was humbling and amazing. Carefully he detached her hands from his pants and turned around to kneel facing her. He drew Trish close against his chest in a hug as warm as he could make it. Her small arms wrapped about his neck, a hand brushing over his hair.

It was something to marvel at. A year ago, she hadn't been able to find comfort in the closeness of anyone and now she offered him comfort in turn. The resilience of a life so young was incredible and astounding.

"Did you chose this outing just because you worried for this Sesshoumaru?" he rumbled quietly in her ear. "Did you spend your reward on something like this?"

"You're my friend," she answered succinctly. "My _best_ friend. You needed something quiet and fun." The little girl bussed his cheek, "You don't have to worry about me, I'll be okay. You worry about yourself."

Sesshoumaru chuckle, "I can do that and still worry about you, the same as I worry for my mate and new pup." He informed her carefully. Trish was aware of his family, she'd even helped him pick out a present for his pup on white day. She'd found it intriguing to be shopping for a youkai pup as opposed to children of more humanoid appearances. There would have been little opportunity for her to meet too many youkai before the age a human form was obtained and maintained. School aged youkai had long developed the skill and while some weren't completely adept few left too many hints at their _other_ness in their appearance by that age.

Sometimes feet remained like paws in the younger grades. Sometimes whiskers remained in evidence or a tail twitched behind them. Maturity helped these last lingering vestiges of heritage disappear from appearance provided the child in question had the self-discipline and continued to practice and improve.

Trish shivered in the passing breeze and Sesshoumaru decided it was time to take their little party indoors.

He'd been surprised to find the underground house empty when they first arrived. Nonny's health made it so the old couple seldom left home. Max refused to leave his lovely feline alone and Nonoka had to take such precautions for her health it wasn't a pleasant endeavor. Even so, Sesshoumaru had found the place locked up tight and no answer to his knocking. Luckily, the elder pair had assigned him his own key during the time Max was in the hospital. Originally, it had only been so that he could unload the supply truck and store the materials when the delivery arrived.

When Sesshoumaru had tried to return the key, Nonny had firmly refused to take it back. He'd never had cause to use it since, but kept it with him among the rest of the keys on his person. In fact, Maxwell-sensei would have been quite upset with him if Sesshoumaru appeared without the key to the supply room regardless as to whether the old man had been cleared to use anything in it.

Sesshoumaru didn't like any part of the subterranean home empty. When Nonny and Maxwell-sensei were present the place felt warm and inviting. When they were absent, it seemed cavernous and foreboding. Trish seemingly felt the same as she refused to let go of his arm once inside. She remained glued to his side in a manner far too similar to her fearful ways a year ago. "There is nothing here that will hurt you if you leave it alone," his voice rumbled quietly to her.

"I don't like the dark," Trish answered and clutched a little tighter to his clawed hand. "Things can hide there."

Sesshoumaru glanced about him, perfectly capable of discerning every element of the studio room they were currently passing through. Almost every underground room had an integrated sky light large enough to paint the place golden in summer, but without additional sources, the sun failed to reach the corners in winter. Max's studio was large and open with strange tools lining the benches around the walls, produces irregular shadows that would surely make a timid child like Trish nervous. He knew they wouldn't move and she had seen every bit of it in brilliance trailing Max during the weeks off at New Year.

A change of perception was as much as physical change in the minds of younger children. Because she could not see them the way she could before the pieces were _not_ the same as they were. That they couldn't harm her in the light was not particularly comforting in the dark. Naturally, into the hushed silence produced while pondering the dark corners of an otherwise empty dwelling, his phone rang with startling volume.

Trish jumped at least a foot in the air and bumped quite solidly into him. Neither of them were expecting the phone to ring. Sesshoumaru's mate had just gotten in a new patient who was proving difficult to stabilize. Most of her time and focus was going towards the new boy. Even Rin was being kept away for the time being. The pup had been complaining about it for days. He hated to think the new hanyou had died on her now, but he couldn't think of another reason for her to call him.

It was interesting having to reach across his own body to answer the phone in his pocket. Trish's grip seemed cemented into place, one more scare and she would likely leap completely from the floor and monopolize both his arms. "Mate," he called into the phone as soon as the connection was made. Sesshoumaru had been obliged to let the phone ring a second time simply because he couldn't reach the phone. He hoped whatever she was calling about really wasn't as urgent as that patient dying.

"I should hope not!" came a voice that certainly wasn't the one he'd been expecting. "My mate is standing not ten feet from me and would be even more riled than he is now if I'd suddenly taken you on!"

"Nonny. What are you doing there?" Sesshoumaru demanded, bewilderment coloring the tones of his voice. He couldn't comprehend what would draw the cat and her mate so far from the safe haven of her home. It was such a hassle to travel just to the nearest town let alone across an ocean, with her health issues. He couldn't think of anything that would draw her to do it.

"A rather impressive young lady expressed some curiosity as to what would be needed to build a properly ventilated underground haven for a youkai or hanyou with my type of allergies," she replied. "Maxi wanted to see her and our grand pup."

Sesshoumaru blinked down at Trish in surprise. "Grand pup?"

"Cats may not be reputed for the pack and family ties that dogs are, but we are capable of forming such ties. Max and I did not have them before you because his family died out decades ago and my mother was disowned by her family before we settled in Australia. She died in World War I and my son in World War II. You are family, you and yours, and while we both are disappointed to finally learn what specific circumstances lead you to mating the woman you did, you are still family."

"I was not in my right mind," Sesshoumaru tried to defend himself.

"Which is not an excuse," Nonny answered shortly. "You certainly never marked anyone else regardless of how drunk you were before. I'm fairly certain you never dosed them either."

Sesshoumaru couldn't refute that. If the alcohol he'd consumed had truly been the reason, it would have happened before this particular female. There had certainly been plenty of opportunity. He'd never suffered a shortage of volunteer night partners of either sex. Likewise he'd often imbibed enough liquor to lose full memory of various escapades before. Some part of him had to have been conscious enough to think of marking and dosing his mate that long ago night.

"I'll let Maxi save his lecture for when it can be delivered in person," Nonny decided in magnanimous tones. "He should still be plenty steamed enough to make it properly punishing next week, possibly more so as his opinion of the sweet girl grows increasingly positive. He'll handle you."

Sesshoumaru held back a whimper. Maxwell-sensei's lectures could kill a person's spirit when the little man was properly motivated. Sometimes, discussing the wrong topic or expressing certain opinions in his teacher's hearing range was like stepping on a landmine that was set and then forgotten about for decades. Sometimes it would blow up huge enough to obliterate you. Sometimes the explosive would just jump up and deafen you. Rarely would the mine be so old as to fail to go off completely.

Nonny's ire was more direct unless she was feeling especially peevish. Then she would purposely rile up her mate and aim him at the right person. Right now, there was no doubt that both Max's personal wrath and Nonny's stoking were working against Sesshoumaru. He wasn't going to try to dodge it. He just found himself suddenly thankful for the short window left in Australia to hear it.

"Are you in trouble with Max and Nonny?" Trish asked him quietly. Sesshoumaru nodded quietly. "Sca-ry!" He nodded again before the other end of the call stole back his attention.

"What are you doing with my phone?" came the exasperated voice of his mate. "Today was Sesshoumaru's day with Trish. Why are you robbing her of her special time with him?"

"We're not robbing her of anything!" Nonny scoffed slightly louder from her proximity to the mouth piece. "I was just checking to make sure they were fine!"

"On my phone?" her skepticism was amazingly heartwarming. "Try again. Did Trish ask you to call? Because if she didn't, you're intruding. After all, you're stressing out her date on her time for something that can wait until you get back home."

"It's not like that," Nonny insisted, unrepentant for her behavior and completely unwilling to acknowledge there was anything wrong with the what she was doing. "I merely wanted to be sure Sesshoumaru wouldn't worry when his perpetual repetitious project wasn't where he left it."

"What?" Sesshoumaru demanded before bolting for the light switch by the main door to the studio. Adrenaline overcame his concern for Trish's anxiety. With the lights on, the little girl was more willing to give him space. The suddenly panicked inu raced for the floor under the second bench from the door. His metal rendition of "paper cranes" as number plates had sat in a crate there for two years slowly filling with greater numbers the more time went by. Sesshoumaru would settle in to making more of them on holidays or during weeks when his mate seemed especially far from him. He'd add to the box after an especially good conversation or to mark some milestone in the relationship that seemed particularly significant. He hadn't expected it to disappear without his direction.

"You removed something of his without letting him know beforehand? And you thought _now_ was the best time to tell him about it?" his mate's skepticism increased with each word. In some ways her scolding the cat was soothing him from the anxiety the pending lectures and emotional pyrotechnics had inspired in him. It wouldn't keep him from worrying over the future confrontation, but it would offer temporary clemency.

"Well it is only now that he would likely discover its sudden mobility. Today when he takes Trish inside to warm up. Sesshoumaru," Nonny changed the direction of her attention back to the end in Australia. "We brought the box and deposited it in the proper hands to insure its contents met their intended use."

"I have no idea what you are talking about, but I don't know why you had to steal my phone when you have your own to harass Sesshoumaru on," his mate cut in. "Today's his day with Trish and you knew that. You could have informed him of whatever this is yesterday or the day before. You could have communicated whatever it was before you left home. Instead you chose to harass him with the added idea that he'd be talking to me. I don't appreciate being used that way without my permission and I don't need your help to torment him either. The benefit of a prolonged courtship is that I have already learned how to do it effectively and in private. Give me back my phone!"

"I-" Nonny sputtered with surprise.

"My phone," came his mate's imperious demand, cutting off the feline surprise. A long pause on the other end noted the standoff before he heard the rush of air that was his female's tired sigh. "Sorry about that, Sesshoumaru. Please apologize to Trish for me. I'm going to have to start keeping my phone under lock and key. Cheryl told them about things she had no business passing on, but she was offended they had nothing bad to say about you."

"What I did to you was terrible mate, as you said, there's no way to tell of it that makes it seem any different. I should have told them. That I didn't admit to my fault in the situation left it open for someone else to communicate it," Sesshoumaru admitted as Trish squeezed him in a tight hug. She had no idea what was going on, but she was determined to support him.

"Maybe, but the only people who should be doing the telling are you and me," she returned softly. "And only you and I can decide how to handle the fall out so long as it doesn't hurt anyone else."

Sesshoumaru smiled softly at the child beside him, "We do not live in a vacuum mate. The actions of others will always impact our lives. Nonny and Mawell-sensei do not often lecture this Sesshoumaru, but their purpose is to teach as much as punish. Not all lessons are pleasant for them to deliver or me to receive, but they are often necessary, proven so by the events that bring them up."


	40. Point of Origin

Well, The Australian break ends, our favorite inu boys are forced back into the Taishou family fold. Just how will that work out? I don't know how many of you have had the experience of trying to return home after living separately for so long, but it's a really hard transition. Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru have changed, their behavior and perceptions have altered and their parents don't see it. There's going to definitely be friction...

Calendar: July.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Point of Origin**

Sesshoumaru leaned back against the smooth leather seat of the limo that had picked Inuyasha up at the airport. It had been slightly surprising that there had been no family or pack waiting to pick them up. Inuyasha was certainly the favored son and his mother should have been eager to begin smothering him after such a long period away.

On the other hand, it was a blessing in disguise as now there was no way their father could know the scent of Kikyou on the hanyou wasn't due to meeting at the airport instead of coming in on the same flight they had. So far, their rather clandestine living situation was still secret unless Taishou Hiroyuki had discovered their duplicity through other means.

Inuyasha had been rather reluctant to let go of his girl, but her family had been waiting to take her back into the fold and their own escort had hovered in the wings to sweep them back to the clan estate. Inuyasha was to be deposited into the waiting arms of family before Sesshoumaru could go home and while neither brother was rushing to follow the mandate of the alpha, both were looking to get it over with quickly.

Sesshoumaru needed to check on his penthouse apartment and get his life in order. Inuyasha was desperate to get back to his sanctuary families, to check on the rest of his fellow hanyou who benefited from that specialized, volunteer safety net.

"Keh, are we there yet?" Inuyasha huffed impatiently. "I want to get his nonsense done and over with."

Sesshoumaru blinked mildly at his impatient brother but didn't bother to answer. Neither of them was used to being chauffeured around in such luxury anymore and there seemed little reason to continue this. They were and had been more than capable of getting themselves around independent of such over-the-top assistance for longer than they'd been abroad.

Inuyasha had disdained and ignored all efforts to assign him a driver before their sojourn to the island continent; Sesshoumaru had long outgrown the offer. Either would have been fully content to grab a cab once through the terminal, but the alpha would have had no control over where the two brothers went in that instance. Sesshoumaru could have headed for his personal home before dropping off Inuyasha. Inuyasha could have persuaded the elder to check in on other acquaintances before deigning to approach the pack estate.

Of course, their alpha couldn't have let that happen. The old dog was establishing his dominance and control in the quickest way possible without even bothering to convey the affection that should have typified all such manipulations from the highest power in a pack. The alpha should have met them at the airport to immediately verify their health on arrival. Barring that, a representative of the alpha, one of some standing within the pack should have been sent. Instead, Hiroyuki had sent an unaffiliated chauffeur to return them to the family bosom.

Having acted the responsible alpha for three years, Sesshoumaru was more aware of the faults in his father's conduct as alpha and parent than ever. Hiroyuki's disdain for the familial ties and the maintenance of healthy relationships within the pack was hardly a new habit. The pack was sickening from more than radiation exposure.

Sesshoumaru took a deep breath before letting it out in a slow controlled manner, determined to put off worrying over the pending confrontation with their pack alpha. Instead he turned his thoughts towards the preparations he'd made for his return home. He had no luggage with him beyond the small carry on that held his essential electronics. There was no reason to believe the limo would remain at his disposal beyond the moment Inuyasha exited the vehicle on clan property. He didn't have a mode of transportation installed at the large house that served to house Hiroyuki, mate and mistress and a large number of pack members beyond that.

How Sesshoumaru got home wasn't something their alpha would concern himself with. Anticipating the determined neglect of his sire was an old habit he'd only grown more adept at with time. Distance really hadn't dampened the effects of the elder inu's supposed forgetfulness over the needs of his heir. The main difference between now and the time before their trip to Australia was Inuyasha's new first hand experience of it.

Sesshoumaru wasn't certain exactly what the hanyou's impression had been before their sojourn to the southern hemisphere, but the first time their father's indifference to Sesshoumaru's legal requirements for continued tenancy in their chosen country became explicitly clear the boy exploded in surprise. Despite Inuyasha's difficulties with sire and mother smothering him, the half inu had still carried the impression their father was a good one. There had been some hard lessons that came to light for the youngest of the direct Taishou line.

Their father had apparently made effort to father Inuyasha as a boy. Where Sesshoumaru had been required to attend the opening of ball fields and community buildings with his grandfather or go alone, Inuyasha had been escorted by a mother and father. There were even pictures captured by the press showing the business tycoon throwing a ball to his hanyou son. Inuyasha had attended a number of charity events with his mother to be later joined by the alpha until his early teens. Only now the boy was beginning to realize that nearly every incident was a publicity stunt.

Sesshoumaru didn't know what was worse, the illusion of a caring father to be later washed away by the reality of a calculating PR professional or knowing his father couldn't care enough about him to keep from using him to improve the public image of the company. Neither was pleasant and his mate was of the opinion that both were equally heinous and just as disastrous on a psyche. Sesshoumaru believed she was merely being generous. The illusion that had raised Inuyasha had at least been a comfort to the developing boy, even if it was accompanied by the reality of their sire's inept parenting. Certainly, Hiroyuki had been mostly absent in the life of his preferred son.

Sesshoumaru had been present for more of Inuyasha's milestones growing up than their father had been, and _he_ had been mostly kept separated from his younger brother. Sesshoumaru had been there at the hanyou's first culture fest in high school, marching alongside his grandsire's elbow and shoving their way through the crowd of impromptu fangirls that tried to impede their progress to the younger Taishou's class project. Sesshoumaru had been present when the boy fell apart after breaking up with his first girlfriend. Sesshoumaru had been there when the younger inu graduated high school, standing beside their grandfather who looked so proud of his second grandson. Sesshoumaru had been there when Inuyasha turned twenty and got so drunk he couldn't find his way to the parking lot where his car was on campus. Sesshoumaru had taken him home and helped the inebriated hanyou sneak into the estate without alerting anyone important of the boy's indiscretion. It hadn't been pleasant, or a particularly appealing chore, but their grandfather's decline had been sharp and steep after Inuyasha's graduation.

Through it all, their father had been busy with the business or his mate or Sesshoumaru's mother. He'd rebuffed every effort their grandfather made to persuade him to take time to spend with the fruit of his loins. It was an on-going argument Sesshoumaru had been aware of since Kindergarten.

Now the conversation on that front was ended because the grandfather who tenaciously kept at it was no longer around to perpetuate it. Sesshoumaru took a deep breath and quietly held it hoping to ease the ache centered in his chest. His mate had told him grief was a perpetual process that never truly ended as new circumstances triggered old memories. He had forgotten the old inu's epic efforts to spur their father to act the part. Sesshoumaru was past the point of caring and wouldn't step up to the plate in their grandfather's place anymore. The fight was over, the end already decided. Even if Hiroyuki completely changed his lifelong behaviors and actually started to concern himself with his sons, he was going to lose both of them in time. The effects of two full decades of self-centered lack of care could not be mended. The pack was going to lose the heir and spare that had been born for no other purpose than pack stability.

Their father could breed more pups, he was not so old nor were his females beyond the age of conceiving. Perhaps if he did the alpha would take a better approach to his new children than he had taken with his first two. It wouldn't matter for Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru anymore. They wouldn't be allowed to meet any new siblings once they left the pack, but he hoped if their father went that route the loss of Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha would improve things for the next round of pups.

He let the breath go and pulled out the tablet his mate had given him for Christmas. She'd sent him a new video of their pup and he couldn't stop watching it. He'd watched it sixteen times on the flight alone and Sesshoumaru felt absolutely no shame in doing so. Their pup had managed to achieve a humanoid form a full three months ahead of schedule. Rin couldn't hold it longer than a few minutes, but she was still ahead of every species of full youkai he'd ever heard of.

"What are you watching?" Inuyasha demanded. He was clearly tired of ranting into a void that made no answer back and being ignored in his frustrated wrath was certainly not the response he was looking for. Sesshoumaru made no move to show him, so the younger brother slouched closer along the leather seats until he could view the images on the glossy screen.

With a sigh, the elder brother obligingly restarted the video, but he didn't unplug his ear buds so Inuyasha could hear. His mate's voice was on the video and while she never appeared on screen, her voice could be enough for Inuyasha to identify her. Maybe.

"The runt?" came the question. Inuyasha had still to call Sesshoumaru's pup by name, and the elder brother found this alternately insulting on her behalf and comforting. Sesshoumaru had chosen a good name and even the shortened nickname was something he could be significantly proud of. The pup should not be teased for it by her closest relatives. The comfort was derived from the realization that should his little brother ever slip up and discuss his pup somewhere the alpha could hear, the terms he used wouldn't definitively give the game away.

"Hn," Sesshoumaru confirmed reluctantly. He didn't want to miss a single moment enfolding in front of him. His mate was coaxing their little girl to show her "papa-Sesshoumaru" her new trick and the pup was proving bashful and shy. Eventually, Rin conceded to shift her fur and produce the fledgling form that would grow into her human persona.

"Shit!" Inuyasha jumped at the change, though why was a mystery to Sesshoumaru. The change wasn't explosive or even abrupt. It was laborious and slow at first. One was reminded of the first efforts of birds to fly. All that ungraceful movement to achieve something without success. It took practice to smooth it all out, practice and maturity, but the first transitions were something every parent hoped to see. Nothing but pride tinted their vision. "She's still a little scruffy," he commented once he got over his shock.

It was a truthful statement as the pup made human had wild hair that fell clumsily into her eyes and she kept hunched over, uncertain of the elevation achieved by walking upright as a human being. It didn't matter to Sesshoumaru. She was precious and beautiful. Her hair was the same reddish brown color of her puppy fur and her eyes glowed with her mother's constant praise and words of love.

His mate termed her clever and wonderful. Rin repaid those words with three simple but powerful ones of her own. "I love you" was sent into the camera and applied to "mama" and "papa" before the pup lost the form she'd achieved and reverted back to the developing coyote youkai that had become their own first daughter. Words of praise and care never stopped though and Sesshoumaru concurred with each of them.

"Isn't it early for her to be able to do that?" Inuyasha asked as the screen went dark at the end of the recording. "Most youkai don't start even that level of change until they're a year old and she isn't that yet is she?"

"She will reach one year in October," Sesshoumaru answered, taking note of the scenery outside the stretched length of their ride.

"Is it okay for her to start shifting so early?" The hanyou's worry was disguised as curiosity, but Sesshoumaru still detected it and responded to it.

"It is known that youkai raised by humans will strive to achieve a human form earlier to start better communication with the principle members of their pack life," came the reply. He'd actually asked the same question. It was wonderful their pup had achieved something so early, but there was worry that the achievement would cause other problems down the line. "This Sesshoumaru's mate is human," came the reluctant admission. He wasn't upset or ashamed of his mate's species so much as he liked to keep all the information he knew about her to himself. They were the only connection he had to her. Disseminating the information seemed to dilute the strength of the information's ability to keep him connected.

"Still not to be shared with the Alpha?" Inuyasha asked. The boy had so far been very good about keeping certain things from their father. Sesshoumaru's trust had not been easily placed with him in the beginning, but the reality that the hanyou had kept an entire network of people who supported him from the alpha's knowledge certainly boosted Sesshoumaru's confidence that Inuyasha could keep a secret. Sesshoumaru used to entrust his secrets to their grandfather, though the secrets to be kept had been juvenile ones long given up for more serious types.

"Hn," Sesshoumaru agreed. "He doesn't need to know about any of it. By the time this Sesshoumaru reunites with her all ties with the pack will be severed."

"You sound as if you know where we'll be going then," Inuyasha observed pensively.

"Indeed," Sesshoumaru nodded minutely. "We already have property and a house. Her work requires she stay where she is and this Sesshoumaru's prospects and skills can find a profitable home anywhere in the world. Besides, the pup should be kept in as stable an environment as possible."

"Will you...Will you spend time with her while she's growing up?" Inuyasha inquired quietly. It was probably something that had hurt growing up, the amount of time he'd spent without either parent around. Sesshoumaru was familiar with that ache and well knew that their father wasn't fully capable of imparting the necessary affection required to compensate for the prolonged absence of his presence.

"This Sesshoumaru spends time with her everyday now," came the reply. "She speaks of her activities, her frustrations, things that have caught her attention and her concerns for her mother's emotional state."

"You actually pay attention to all that?" Inuyasha gaped in surprise. "I thought you'd just let her ramble while doing other things."

Sesshoumaru glared at his brother. "I am not our father. She is my pup. What is important to her is important to me and I will hear as much of it as she's willing to tell," the last was growled in anger. He would never be like Taishou Hiroyuki, unwilling or unable to see the gift presented to him with every fast yipped idea. He imagined when Rin was able to maintain a human guise long enough her speech would be just as fast if not faster. She was hard enough to keep up with now sometimes.

Inuyasha backed off a little. "I'm sorry all right. I thought we'd both be like dad, it's kind of scared me a few times thinking about it. I know Kikyou wants kids someday and I know it'd be expected of us, but I don't want to wake up one day and find out I'd missed it all because I was just like dad."

"Hn," Sesshoumaru considered the nervous hanyou's words carefully. It was true that children often turned out to parent in the styles used on themselves. Abusive parents were often a result of abuse at the hands of their own parents in childhood. "We will be like grandfather, the only real parent either of us had. Do not forget that your female grew up in a healthy family, she will not let you parent like the Taishou alpha."

"Keh," the hanyou appeared unconvinced.

"If you follow this Sesshoumaru into the world beyond the pack, you will have at least one other set of parents to observe and learn from. My mate and I will likely be moved on to a second pup by the time you and Kikyou are ready for your first," he added. It was certainly fact enough. His instinct would drive Sesshoumaru to rut his mate upon reuniting until they were both exhausted, half blind, and she conceived. The initial separation had been her declaration of his unworthiness. Instinct would drive him to prove his worthiness through sexual means. He'd warned her of such and apologized for it more times than even she could stand. "Unless you choose not to join our pack or Kikyou conceives before that time."

"Don't even joke about that," Inuyasha grumbled then shifted against the leather as the car pulled up to the outer gate of the pack grounds. "I can't stay with them, and I would rather not knock Kikyou up without some family support in place first. My family, not hers."

"You have a problem with Kikyou's family?" Sesshoumaru had been unaware of that.

"They got a problem with me, mostly because of dad," Inuyasha glared at the approaching mansion. "He keeps harassing them, trying to buy them off. They find it insulting as would any decent family but mostly because the old man declared their family unworthy of mine. Since the only personal contact they have with our side of things is me, they blame me."

"Hn. And Kikyou, what does she think?"

"She's tried explaining things to them, but they still blame me and told her to stop seeing me," the expressive ears on his head flattened with his continued upset over their reaction.

"Obviously she is as stubborn about you as you are about her," Sesshoumaru observed. "You are well matched."

Inuyasha offered him a small half-smile, clearly surprised by the comment but unwilling to give up the hurt over the rejection received from his female's family. Sesshoumaru's support meant a lot in the void produced by the lack of it on all other sides. "Let's get this interview over with," Inuyasha growled as the door swung open. Neither brother was looking forward to whatever the alpha had cooked up to welcome them home.

In an effort to delay the inevitable, Inuyasha followed the chauffeur around the back of the limo to the trunk to assist in pulling out his luggage while Sesshoumaru resettled his tablet in its protective travel pouch and climbed out into the steamy air of Honshu in July.

Going from the temps of winter to summer in the space of a few hours was an...interesting transition for a youkai to make. Sesshoumaru knew that if he shifted to his natural form right now, he would likely over heat due to the thicker coat he'd developed under the impression of approaching and intensifying cold. By the time his fur thinned out it would likely be time for it to start thickening up again.

"Would you just let go of my-I said let go damnit!" Inuyasha growled at the uniformed man trying to do his job while the hanyou attempted to usurp it from him. "It's my bag, I can carry my own damn bag into the damn house!"

"Very good sir," came the professional reply through gritted smiling teeth. Sesshoumaru almost smirked at the serviceman's frustration with his younger brother. Inuyasha had that effect on people. He could try the patience of a dozen service personnel simply by trying to do things himself. The boy was too plebeian in his behaviors to be easy on servants. It was a charming trait for a rich boy to have when he was courting a decidedly middle class woman, but the most annoying one for those required to attend that same rich boy. They were paid to do all the things Inuyasha was trying to do himself. Hiroyuki was just the type of jerk to penalize the servant whose job was taken over by Inuyasha.

Sesshoumaru was fairly certain that Inuyasha wasn't fully cognizant of all the consequences of his determined independence. After all, there was no reason for him to notice the disappearance of one or another anonymous member of the staff. Then again, he had misjudged his hanyou brother's depths before. For all he knew, Inuyasha sought out and helped place all the staff their father let go. He was certainly capable of finding an army of maids and butlers and drivers new employment with the sanctuary family network connections. His brother was incredibly social for his rash ways. It was a marvel to watch or discover.

Sesshoumaru waited for his brother to stop pestering the poor man, in no mood to face their sire without the golden boy that was so important. Besides which, Inuyasha would be upset with him if he got left behind. Their confrontation with the alpha was not going to be pleasant, but Inuyasha was determined Sesshoumaru wouldn't face it alone. In some way or another, Sesshoumaru would be accused of some insufficiency as an heir.

He certainly hadn't expanded the Taishou business interests into the Australian sphere. Sesshoumaru hadn't continued his education either. About the only thing that could be deemed a success was the return of Inuyasha in one single, healthy piece and even that would be called into question with the scent of Kikyou lingering on the red hoodie covering the hanyou's torso. It was never explicitly suggested that the trip south was intended to separate boy from girl deemed unacceptable by parents, but there was little doubt the thought had been present in the alpha's mind when making the initial decision.

Sesshoumaru sighed.

"I'm coming, all right! Keh," Inuyasha growled the stuck up driver back into the driver's seat. "You'd think you were eager for this, wanting to see the old man or something."

"This Sesshoumaru merely wants to get this done and move on with the day. You will be home the moment you walk in the door, I still have to travel back into the city to reach mine before I can go about the work of settling in," he turned to lead the way inside. Inuyasha followed, dragging the largest piece of his baggage over the gravel creating a rough grating sound that was soothing despite the way it overwhelmed the natural sounds of the wind brushing through the trees. The crunch of it under foot was familiar and associated with childhood and home. He remembered the feel of it under his paws when his grandfather ushered him across the drive from the great building to the wild territory that made up most the property. Even so, this was no place for him.

Familiarity did not bring contentment. There was no comfort to be found in empty surroundings. Sesshoumaru's hand tightened on the strap of his carry on bag. It would be difficult to return to the box he'd lived in before the world had opened up and granted him sun-baked hills and underground homes of a foreign country. Dealing with Taishou Hiroyuki as alpha after acting as alpha himself would tax his patience and ability to follow strategy, but Inuyasha needed to finish his degree before they could break from the pack.

Sesshoumaru could not leave first. He wouldn't leave Inuyasha to their father's manipulations without him. Granted, his support would be mostly off site, Inuyasha's plans were to spend as much time as possible away from home. Sesshoumaru gathered the younger inu planned to stay with friends unless driven to formally move out. If it came to that, the alpha's response was simply beyond prediction.

Inuyasha dropped all of his bags inside the front door where a butler was waiting to lead them to whatever staged meeting their alpha had contrived. Best case scenario had the brothers meeting with just Hiroyuki in one of the larger offices on the first floor. Then it would just be the alpha making a statement of authority. Worst case had their mothers joining them to add emotional blackmail to the otherwise stilted conversation.

When the door opened Sesshoumaru realized it was the worst case as expected. An absence of three years would definitely be met with a full force assault on the senses. His mother had clearly just come from the spa, her scent was dusted over with a floral and herbal addition that was irritating to the extreme after the bombardment of humanity on the plane to Japan. Izayoi was apparently unable to sit still as the moment Inuyasha's ears cleared the door she pounced him into the wall with her exuberant affection.

Hiroyuki remained in the position of power behind the oversized mahogany desk. "So the Prodigal sons return," came the words and the following deep scenting breath. The elder inu's gaze sharpened with a very special ire. "What was that wench doing with Inuyasha? You were supposed to keep him from such foolishness."

Sesshoumaru restrained his growl and mustered his blandest tones to answer. "She was at the airport." No lie in that statement. The fact that Kikyou had arrived with them rather than to meet them was irrelevant to the statement itself. "This Sesshoumaru was tasked with maintaining the hanyou's health and mental stability while barring him from legal trouble. Keeping Inuyasha from his chosen female was never indicated as being part of that task," he concluded quite honestly.

"You know she's unsuitable!" Hiroyuki growled.

"Hn, I never shared your views on the female in question," Sesshoumaru returned mildly.

"Well three years away from her meal ticket revealed her true colors," Hiroyuki sat back in a self-satisfied pose.

"Indeed," the elder son raised an eyebrow, baiting the alpha to hang himself.

"What the hell are you talking about? Kikyou is the genuine article, my girl and she loves me!" Inuyasha hollered as he struggled to break free of his mother's hold. "You need to just accept that!"

"I had her watched while you were gone," here it came, Sesshoumaru thought to himself. Hiroyuki was just about to dispel any possible left over hero-worship Inuyasha had left. A rather generic manila envelop slapped against the smooth top of the desk. "Take a look at your working class angel now, why don't you? We have evidence of her taking gifts in exchange for company from three different men." Inuyasha scoffed, so the alpha continued, "In the same week!"

"I happen to know exactly where she was and who she was with everyday that I was out of the country," Inuyasha growled as his amber eyes began to shade red with rage. "She has never done anything to warrant your animosity, snobbery or suspicion. I respected your unfounded disapproval of my choice, I held off on my plans to allow you time to accept my choice," Sesshoumaru was impressed by Inuyasha's restraint. "How dare you disrespect me and my girl by fabricating so-called evidence of her mercenary behavior!"

"Inuyasha, we're just trying to-" Izayoi tried to break in but Inuyasha cut her off.

"Shut up!" the boy growled shortly. "I get you have your old-fashioned view of things. I get that back in the day royalty and nobility only married in the same social class. I get you think money makes you better than other people. I respected your stance on my betrothed, but I never lied to you about it. I never made things up trying to change your mind. I may keep things from you to preserve my privacy and hers too, but I never printed out fake photos or tried to pretend Kikyou was more than she was." Through the hanyou's rage came tears of betrayal and severe disappointment. "You lied. More than that, you would have broken my heart for no other reason than because I wouldn't conform to what you wanted me to be." A heavy silence threaded through the charged room. "I am not your pet, I am not some doll you can bring out whenever you want to make a good impression on the press or feel like playing happy families when you can get a spare minute. You want to fake your way through parenthood, fine, but I want something real and I never want to be like you!"

"Inuyasha," Sesshoumaru rumbled quietly.

The hanyou turned with wet eyes to his elder brother, "Can I-"

"Hn," Sesshoumaru answered and turned to lead the way out. "The hanyou will be staying with this Sesshoumaru for now," he called back over his shoulder.

"Keh, bastard," came the half-hearted protest over terms. They paused briefly at the front door as Inuyasha tried to decide how much of his luggage to take with him. Ultimately the two brothers worked together to carry it all. "Thanks Sesshoumaru," floated through the heated air, the quiet gratitude was unnecessary but accepted.

"Hurry up, Inuyasha, there's still work to do to make the place inhabitable for even a slob like you," Sesshoumaru pulled one end of the largest bag in the direction of the city.

"Shut up," Inuyasha managed a weak laugh even as he sniffled wetly. "I can't believe they tried to do that."

"At least they can't go any lower," Sesshoumaru assured his stumbling brother without looking back. Inuyasha needed to mourn childhood illusions, Sesshoumaru would give him the honor of not watching his eyes leak. Sesshoumaru was alpha enough to know what his brother needed right now.


	41. Moment of Stability

Happy 2015 all!

Calendar: October 31st because every little girl needs to dress up for her first Halloween...well Second-ish.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Moment of Stability**

Kagome clutched tightly to Rin's tiny human hand and lead the shy little girl into the pediatrics ward of the hospital. Cheryl walked on the other side of the coyote pup's humanoid form, the other tiny hand wrapped tightly around the long white braid that the spider left just for her to hold onto. They were all in costume just like most of the hospital staff. The two children's ward staffs had selected their costumes based on Lewis Carroll's books _Alice in Wonderland_ and _Through the Looking Glass_, hoping to keep the dress G rated.

Kagome had dressed Katarin as the titular character _Alice_ hoping to keep it simple, the better to remove when the small child lost her form at the end of her endurance. Kagome had dressed as the Red Queen and Cheryl the White Queen so that they would stand out from the rest of the costumed adults.

Gloria stood as a most impressive Queen of Hearts, waving her scepter at all of the nurses. "And who is this impertinent child?" Gloria questioned Rin when they first approached the main nurses station. Kagome smiled down at her little girl and tugged the suddenly shy Alice around to answer for herself.

"Rin is Alice today," Katarin mumbled.

"Stop fidgeting this instant," the head nurse chastised in a booming voice, even while she softened the criticism with a warm smile and a cheerful wink. Rin-chan stared up at the woman, obviously unable to decide what to make of this strange transformation.

Connor came up behind her dress in a strange but attractive steam punk rendition of the Mad Hatter. "If it please her majesty, perhaps the small girl is merely overawed to be in the presence of so wonderful a creature as your grace," he winked in his turn and Rin smiled timidly up at him. Connor was familiar and his costume persona wasn't too far out of his regular playfulness when he came to visit.

"No it does not please me," Gloria turned on him with a sweep of her scepter that nearly knocked of his hat. "Off with his head!" A group of kids scattered down the hall laughed with varying degrees of boisterousness. Those that had the energy were animatedly talking with visiting family about the various efforts the staff had made to make being in the hospital over a favorite holiday more bearable.

Breakfast options had included green eggs and ham and "Monster" pancakes. There had even been an oatmeal option for the tetchier stomach, only it came with "flies". All options were healthy and doctor approved. Raisins stood in for flies, halved grapes and blue berries rocked the "Monster" pancake eyes and only the biggest stick-in-the-mud young teens bothered to comment negatively about the creativity used to come up with the menu additions. Lunch had "Monster Mash" and "Brain" burger selections with severed cheese stick fingers.

Kagome had been tempted to talk the staff into letting Rin participate in the meals today, but managed to abstain from suggesting it. The human meals weren't enough for a growing Coyote, fun as they were. Rin-chan needed far more protein in her diet now that she was almost completely weaned off the breast milk. It was enough to let her little girl "trick-or-treat" through the wards of the hospital, brightening the other kids' experience while giving her pup a safe environment for her first Halloween experience.

It had been a bit risky bringing a full youkai pup into the human side of the hospital the first time. Hidden bigotry often came to the surface around vulnerable human children. Kagome had never intended to rile anyone up with the presence of her pup, but when she started coming back to help hanyou her babysitters were limited. She couldn't leave Katarin at home as the pup still needed regular contact with her. The hanyou doctor couldn't take the pup everywhere with her and she was limited by Rin-chan's willingness to stay with any given minder.

Naturally, this meant one of a select number of people that had already been introduced to the little coyote. Gloria, Connor, Emily, and a hand full of other people were Kagome's only options. Half of the people Kagome knew worked in human wards so therefore, Rin would have to go to the human side of the hospital. Luckily, the first few visits Rin was generally mistaken for a pet dog brought in for morale boosting or therapy. When the pup started producing a human face and fuzzy hands, the transition was looked on with something akin to awe by most of the patients. It was rare for anyone not immediately related to a youkai to view this part of a youkai's physical development.

Many were fully aware of the honor they were graced with. Many just watched in fascination as Rin found her human feet and lost all inappropriate fuzz. The kids, well they all thought the pup was amazing.

"There's your friend Ben," Kagome directed her little girl's attention to a boy down the hall wearing a shoulder spica cast painted to look like Iron man's armor. The blonde boy had been in a car accident with about half his soccer team in the back of a van. Most of the others had suffered some small injury or another, but Benjamin got the worst of it with a dislocated shoulder and broken collarbone. The arm hanging from his opposite shoulder was encased in a short-arm cast also decorated as a piece of the superhero's special armor.

Somebody had been around with the face paints too, because red and gold lined his face in a credible mimicry of the armored mask warn by the comic book hero. He'd been brought in two days ago and held over for monitoring as they'd feared a concussion too. Rin had made fast friends with him the minute he was placed in a regular room. Ben thought the little youkai was incredible because she could do lots more than his little brother who was a full year older.

Kagome hadn't the heart to tell him that youkai matured at an accelerated rate until age four when they slowed to the human rate until college. Then Rin would slow down so drastically it would almost appear she didn't age at all. Most youkai species followed similar patterns, a product of evolution and the threat of predators. At their youngest, all youkai were vulnerable, it behooved them to grow out of it as fast as possible. Until then, infantile youkai were kept away from the greater population so as to prevent injury and danger.

The problem was, Kagome didn't have the support system or the luxury of keeping her pup completely under wraps. Thankfully, it hadn't been an issue. As the children in the wards had accepted the little coyote's presence as being another child, their parents never said anything against her. Somehow Rin had never come up as an issue in the other wards either, though it had been reported to Kagome that the pup stuck entirely to her youkai form in every ward that didn't contain comparably aged individuals.

She wasn't sure if Rin just never had an interest in talking to the sick adults or if she somehow knew instinctively that revealing herself as anything more than an unusually intelligent pet was unsafe. Kagome never asked her about it and Sesshoumaru followed her lead. There was no reason to make Rin-chan self-conscious about a decision she'd made that kept her safe. It didn't matter if the pup decided to do it consciously or instinctively, it had worked so far.

Trust was a big lesson full of inherent dangers. It was a complex issue as not all people are worthy of the honor, but living in suspicion of everyone wasn't healthy either.

But tonight was meant to be fun and Kagome refused to think on most serious matters while exposing her little girl to the enjoyment of a holiday adored by children the world over.

There wouldn't be the hoards of candy typified by most Halloween celebrations. Most of the kids in the ward couldn't afford to waste appetite on anything that wouldn't give them more than empty calories. Some had terrible allergies and others were still trying to recover from grave illness. But there were some healthy alternatives that had been hits for snacks throughout the day. There had been apple slices on sticks half dipped in caramel. There were Ants on a Log with raisins standing in for insects again. A number of the younger tots had enjoyed bowls of eyeballs, which were little more than skinned, dyed grapes. Some had been brave enough to try the cold spaghetti salad dish that had been labeled as brains on a plate on the menu.

Most every patient on the ward had gone in for the Zombie Sherbet, which was really a lime green flavor. In fact, a number of the kids still had their bowls in their hands. It was a bit of a relief that Rin still hadn't manifested any enjoyment in frozen treats. The faces she made when Kagome would give her a taste were hilarious, but were never full of pleasure in the taste or the experience. Otherwise, the Red Queen and the White Queen would have been forced to somehow procure some lime sherbet for their little Alice.

Rin tugged Kagome's hand in the direction of Ben, excited to chat with the older boy and the group of other cast wielding superheroes. Somebody had taken a lot of time to paint the various bone setting casts to match the corresponding part of a chosen hero There was a Batman, Spiderman, Captain America, two Incredible Hulks, and a Thor. The one little girl in the group was dressed as Catwoman, which hadn't required painting the cast so much as covering it in a loose leg warmer. Rin was chronologically younger than every child in the group, but she was a favorite and most of the kids weren't aware how _much _younger the coyote actually was.

"You came as Alice?" Ben asked as soon as they came into range of a loud shout. "Cool! You'll fit in with all the nurses and orderlies!"

The pup beamed in happiness at the adolescent approval. "Rin-chan wanted to match mommy," came the pup's response. She still spoke in third person, a little shaky on the use of pronouns in two languages.

"Who is she supposed to be?" Catwoman demanded in confusion. Most of the kids were semi-familiar with _Alice in Wonderland_ as plenty of children's movies had been made from it, few were aware there had been a sequel.

"The Red Queen," Rin answered promptly, tightening her hold on Kagome in nervousness. She wasn't used to having to explain things. At Rin's age explanations usually went the other way. "The White Queen and the Red Queen are from the second book Alice travels through."

"They're from a chess board," Ben added. "There's a Red King and White King too."

"I thought chess had black and white pieces," Spiderman observed, clearly more familiar with the game than most seven year old superheroes. "My dad's set is black and white."

Rin looked confused and on the verge of upset so Kagome came to the rescue, "I believe the only required color is for one side to be white as the white side always goes first. In the book the other side was red."

"I didn't even know there was a second Alice book!" Catwoman exclaimed.

"I didn't know it was a book," grumbled Batman.

"Did you know that Batman was a comic book before it was a tv show?" Ben asked him. "My dad said the tv show was silly. It didn't start getting awesome until they started making the second round of movies."

"Was the comic silly?" Batman asked.

"Well, my dad liked to read it," Ben answered dubious as to whether that was an endorsement of awesomeness or not.

"Actually, all of those sssuperheroesss you're dressed up as were comic booksss," Cheryl declared mildly, having caught up after starting an argument at the nurses station. Apparently, Cheryl thought the White Queen was higher in the hierarchy than the Queen of Hearts. This had naturally lead to a rather explosive round of orders to take "off her head" from Gloria that had various nurses and young teens congregating to watch the spectacle.

Kagome had moved on thinking the question pointless and the crowding dangerous for a pup too short to look over the counter on the nurses desk. Better she and Rin had moved away than risk her pup getting trampled in the excitement.

"Really?" came the chorus of voices.

"Of courssse," Cheryl answered. "Nearly all of your charactersss were invented in the dark agesss before your birth."

"Really Cheryl," Kagome glowered at the spider. "The dark ages were not that recent."

"To kidsss thisss age everything before their birth may as well be the dark agesss," the arachnid returned smartly. "They weren't around yet, therefore their wasss nothing good around."

"They only believe that until they learn otherwise," Kagome easily shot back. "Just ask your parents about where the superheroes came from, they most likely know very well." The small group of children came to a quick consensus and turned in separate directions to track down their personal parents. Only Ben lingered, seemingly already aware of where his character came from.

"I know Iron Man was in a comic book, but he was only really cool after he made it to the movies," the boy opined firmly. "It's awesome you came by tonight, they're talking about sending me home tomorrow."

"That's wonderful!" Kagome smiled. "Isn't that wonderful, Rin?" The pup grinned broadly before bashfully nodding. Rin had never evinced such attachment to anyone but Kagome to mind the eventual disappearance of any one friend. When they were checked out and sent home, Rin's joy never faltered with tears of sadness or any disappointment. It struck Kagome as a little strange, but Sesshoumaru assured her it was normal for a pup Rin's age.

"Come on Rin-chan, we've got other places to visit tonight," Kagome encouraged her pup to wave good bye so they could go see the youkai ward and the pup's other friends. "We're happy you're well enough to go home, but we'll probably see you again when you get your casts off and come in for check ups."

"Yeah!" Ben answered brightly before waving them off and turning to find another group to hang out with. There were supposed to be movies later in the play room and popcorn infested with almonds for cockroaches. Kagome wasn't entirely sure why everything was related to eating bugs, but it sounded gross enough to appeal to most of the smaller children. And the older ones knew it was all pretend anyway.

Hopefully nobody was convinced for life that raisins were flies or ants and almonds were cockroaches. It would just be awful if some innocent fun landed a number of kids traumatized for life. There was no telling what would mark a kid's psyche at this age.

Rin stopped to look back and Kagome followed her lead to see Ben connect with one of the kids stuck in a wheel chair dressed as Amelia Earhart. The little girl even had the haircut right under the era appropriate flight helmet and goggles. The little flight pioneer in the wheel chair wouldn't be going home anytime soon. She'd been brought in with a bad case of pneumonia and a pair of ear infections. Kagome wondered if that was how her parents had sold her on the lady aviator. Amelia Earhart herself had contracted pneumonia once while nursing victims of the Spanish flu. Then she'd gone on to fly solo across the Atlantic. Never mind the flight that never reached its end.

It was reassuring that some parents helped their kids pick out costumes that weren't so commercialized. It was an opportunity to teach something and Kagome had every intention of reading both of Lewis Carroll's most popular books to Rin at a later date. Right now they were working their way through a collection of Native American fables that circled around coyote and the other breeds of youkai that had been integral to the lives of the first Americans. She wanted her pup to be aware and proud of her heritage even if there was no way to know her specific pedigree.

Dr. Suess was plotted for sometime next year after they completed construction of her new clinic, mostly because she'd been promise a full set of his books to install in the clinic with an assortment of other popular children's books.

In the youkai pediatrics ward, they found Manny dressed as the White Rabbit and surrounded by a walking, talking deck of cards. There was the same assortment of superheroes and storybook characters. Kagome swore there were three different Tiggers and a Batman who was actually a bat. One thing the youkai side boasted more of in the costume department were mythological figures. There was one kid running around dressed as Zeus and threatening to throw lightening bolts at all the girls while his hapless brother hovered in his wheel chair looking dark and glum like a thunder cloud. She wasn't sure who the sad bald kid was supposed to be, but he was clearly associated with some other storm god to complement his older, wilder brother.

Rin growled at Hiten when he came too close for her preferences which unfortunately only drew his attention. The pup had run-ins with this particular hoodlum in the past on several occasions, mostly because Hiten was a snob. The boy was always putting down the coyote for having a human mother and an absent father, but only after giving her hell for not being kept by the unknown woman that birthed her. What really got Kagome was that his father never said anything about his obnoxious behavior despite the fact that Rin was probably the only girl Manten had ever met that didn't give him a hard time about how he looked.

"Back off," Rin repeated in actual words. Growls were not understood by _all_ youkai, Sesshoumaru had been certain to tell her so. "You will not hurt my mommy!"

"I'll hurt the worthless human if I want!" Hiten grinned maliciously even as Manten came up behind him and started to beg him to turn away.

"Come on, brother," Manten whined in weak frustration, knowing full well that nothing he said would sway the elder. Hiten gave the girls hell for two reasons. One was their treatment of Manten, the other was his unfailing belief in his own superiority. Besides which the boy was only too young to be outright diagnosed a sadist and girls reacted more dramatically than his other available victims. "Rin has always been nice to me."

"She probably teases you behind your back like all the others who ever pretended to like you," Hiten declared loudly.

"Rin would never do something so low!" the pup protested with another growl. Katarin was actually doing rather well for a pup her age. Most canines would be nipping and biting by now, but the coyote had restrained herself and used only words so far. Kagome decided that if Hiten kept up his abusive behavior of all the other kids in the ward whenever he visited his brother, she was going to report him. There had to be a way to ban the brat from the ward for his continued disruption and emotional abuse of his sibling. "Rin's not like you!"

Her more immediate plan was to zap the brat with the pocket shock stick she'd been issued after the foxes cracked her ribs. It wouldn't harm him, but it would make him sit up and take notice. Kagome was equally prepared to hit him with reiki if he actually persisted in attempting to harm Rin.

"Sure you're not," Hiten laughed. "Nobody wants to be his friend, not really. He's a freak, a youkai that can't get well!" Manten looked even gloomier and darker than ever.

Rin growled. "Don't talk about him like that! He's your brother! He's not a freak!" The pup yelled indignant on behalf of the other youkai. "He's sick because of the way the world is. Lots of youkai are sick now! My papa's gandpa died because of the world now! Pol-pollu-" Rin's frustration over his inability to pronounce the world caused her to growl instead. "Mommy's friend Nonny gets sick from the air in cities! Youkai get cancer from the poison leaked into the food! He's not a freak! He's not!" Her passionate defense inspired tears and shook her control over the humanoid form but she struggled to maintain it so she could get the point across. Kagome was so proud of her baby girl. "Manten is beautiful and funny. He smiles so big and proud when he hears about Souten's school accomplishments. Why couldn't she be here instead of you? You just make him feel bad!"

"How dare you criticize my son, you mixed blood cur!" came the criticizing male voice.

"Father," Hiten grinned evilly while Manten groaned in misery.

"Amazing that'sss the only thing you bothered to pick up on, her criticisssm of the elder when she wasss defending the younger," Cheryl observed flatly.

"Don't be absurd," Raijin Kaminara denied that anyone who could criticize one son would defend the other, especially in the specific way indicated. "Manten couldn't possibly inspire any positive feelings in such an ignorant lesser creature."

"It would be more accurate that the ignorant, rather arrogant members of this little party are you and that brat there. You make Manten feel bad for things he can't control as if his ill health marks him as less of a person," Kagome intruded delicately. "Rin has been friends with Manten for weeks. They tell each other stories and support each other in ways he clearly isn't receiving from other avenues. He smiles when she visits. Has he ever done that when you or your eldest show up?"

"Are you the one responsible for this little brat? No wonder she acts so ill-behaved," scoffed the youkai parent. "A human raising a youkai can never end well!"

"Yesss, because she isn't the one violently attacking every child on the ward with boltsss of electricity without inssstigation," Cheryl pointed out. "If any child'sss behavior on thisss floor needsss correcting it is that hoodlum in the greek cossstume making fun of his own brother."

"One more word out of any of you and I'll have you up on charges! Do you know who I am?" was the father's indignant reply.

"No," Kagome answered, "And that seems to be a true blessing." With those words she pulled Rin after her and out of the ward.

"Why did we leave, we weren't wrong?" Cheryl grumped. "I could absssolutely break him down until he criesss for his mommy," was her mumbled grumble to follow up.

"Did Rin do something bad?" came the timid question as Kagome leaned down to help remove her pup's costume. Rin's fur was starting to poke out, a solid indication that the little girl had reached her limit. Despite that, she was struggling to maintain her human form just a little longer for her answers.

"No baby, but some families can't be helped the way we want," Kagome wanted to weep for Manten. "You were right to defend your friend, and you were good to only use words, but continuing to argue like that wouldn't have brought about a positive resolution for Manten or his family. Sometimes all we can do is support our friends so that they can make it through the harder experiences in life on their own. We can go back and cheer him up another day, but it's best to let it rest for now."

"But they treat him bad, make him feel bad about himself," Rin whined, another indication of her fatigue. Kagome smiled in amusement.

"Yes, and we can report what we observe to the proper people and hope something comes from it, but it may take a lot of time," Kagome explained. "But we can't interfere directly without causing Manten more problems." Rin slid from her human child guise into the four pawed pup of her nature and crawled into her mother's arms. "How 'bout we go see Teddy before we go home? Would you like that?" A tired yip came from the pup in her arms that Kagome took for a yes.

"Do you ssstill need me?" Cheryl asked tugging at the tight collar of her costume.

"I didn't really need you before," Kagome laughed. "Rin and I thought you might enjoy a Halloween around kids. You didn't have to join us if you had other plans," Rin turned to stare at the spider in curiosity.

"Oh I had no other plansss, but I feel the need to report a sssuspicion of child abussse on Manten'sss behalf," Cheryl responded. "That ass needsss sssome lessonsss in parenting."

"Rin, I think would be very grateful if you did," Kagome nuzzled against the crown of the pup's head. Rin got particularly affectionate when she was tired. "I was just planning to discuss what could be done to bar the father and brother from the ward. They interfere with Manten's convalescence, he always has a relapse after they visit. As Rin said, they make him feel worse about everything, including himself. His mother and sister are supportive and loving by comparison, but custody is split between the two parents."

"Then maybe I can contact a judge and a lawyer to remove cussstody rightsss from the father but not the mother," Cheryl added pensively. "Thisss Ssspider knowsss people and I'm motivated after that ass took out for Rin-chan. She is truly preciousss in the way she seesss the people and not their illness. It is wonderful." Cheryl would know with how other youkai had treated her after overcoming her cancer diagnosis. It was strange how youkai automatically assumed youkai that had survived cancer were contagious or forever tainted. Even old friends treated her different. Sadly humans did too.

Kagome had hoped raising Rin around the kids in the hospital would teach her that even sick kids were still kids, that an illness was not the entirety of a person's reality. So far the effort had been successful, but Rin was young yet. There was an innocence that influenced the pup's interactions with the sick and the injured that she hoped never went away.

Instead of answering Cheryl's praise, Kagome simply smiled before turning to head down to oncology and her latest hanyou patient. She spent most of her time in oncology or drowning in hospital records. In fact, the secret miko had even been downstairs a few hours ago and stopped by as often as she could.

Luckily Rin had made instant friends with Teddy's aunt so she was always willing to visit whenever allowed. It was never for long, but they went often as Kagome tried to stabilize Teddy's youki and health long term. There hadn't been much progress, but everything done so far was rated a success as Teddy was still among the living.

Kagome didn't call it a full success until he could go home and live like a normal kid. Until then, she did what she could to keep him out of the more dangerous area of bad health and contacted every expert, holistic practitioner, exorcist, shaman, spiritual leader, weather doctor, and philosopher she could think of or find to assimilate possible ways of helping a hanyou achieve good health. Frustratingly, most of her reaching was unproductive, but she'd keep trying. Kagome refused to lose another hanyou on her watch.


	42. Fraying the Seams

Welcome back. It's another explosive chapter of PC just waiting to be read. We're back in Japan again to learn a little more about how Hiroyuki acts when thwarted. I'll leave it at that, the chapter is right there after all!

Calendar: January

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Fraying the Seams**

Sesshoumaru rushed to change clothes into something more comfortable before meeting with the alpha. Inuyasha had not yet moved back to the estate. The falsehoods their joint parents had attempted to feed the younger inu was very likely the end of Inuyasha's tolerance for their interference in his life and with his love. As he'd told them in July, he could tolerate their narrow-minded snobbery. He could tolerate their old-fashioned views of classic caste lines and customs. He could even tolerate their refusal to see past their own plans for him to see what he really wanted in life. But lying about it, fabricating evidence to support their own ends was such a breech of trust it couldn't be gotten over.

Inuyasha didn't trust them, any of them, but their father most especially. He refused to be alone in the same room with the alpha whatever the old man said. Whenever the summons came, the hanyou would insist Sesshoumaru go with him. When his mother begged her boy to come home and prove he was alive and healthy, Sesshoumaru had been in the room irritated by the smell of her shallow, salty, crocodile tears. When the alpha refused to fork over Inuyasha's monthly stipend unless he showed up in person, Sesshoumaru had been there standing up under the constant glare Hiroyuki cast in his directon.

Hiroyuki had retaliated by reducing Sesshoumaru's monthly stipend from the pack to just cover the cost of his penthouse condo and insisted he start work in the company. If Inuyasha hadn't been nominally living with him, it was likely the stipend would have been reduced even further. As it was the salary he received for his mindless bottom rung position barely covered his meals. Sesshoumaru found himself having to choose between fuel for the car he'd kept in storage while abroad or a better cut of meat for a week of meals. As it was, his mate was covering the cost of both their phones right now.

He'd made a point of not bringing it up with Inuyasha. There was no doubt that if the boy took it up directly with their sire, the alpha would merely point out Sesshoumaru's failure to continue his education in Australia. After all, he should only have missed a single semester of classes. Forget about apprenticeship contracts and commitments or the fact his visa was for work and not education after the first year. The Taishou had no care for the legal logistics of staying in a foreign country beyond how they benefited his own ends.

Or Hiroyuki might point to the fact Sesshoumaru had produced absolutely no business contacts that would assist in expansion to the island continent. It didn't matter that Sesshoumaru's exposure to the business world would have been limited by first his class schedule and then his apprenticeships. Never mind that the spare time outside of those obligations would have been spent monitoring Inuyasha's behavior. That is, if Sesshoumaru had actually intended to fulfill either task as set out by the alpha.

These were material reasons to reduce the financial support he received from the pack if Inuyasha confronted the alpha about it. Of course, these points neglected to admit the fact that very few members of the pack worked in Hiroyuki's company. All the ones who did work in the company still received the stipend Sesshoumaru had formerly and received a larger salary than he did. They were also in positions they had been educated and trained for where Sesshoumaru wasn't.

In the stereotypical mode of a CEO father wanting to instill some moral value or character strength in his heir, Hiroyuki had chosen to stick Sesshoumaru in accounting. It didn't matter that the alpha had no genuine desire for Sesshoumaru to learn anything beyond his father's great displeasure in his behavior. He had a degree in business management, not accounting...not that he couldn't do the work, but it wasn't what he'd been sent to school _for_. His course work had included classes on accounting, but it seemed a waste of the pack funds to send him to school for management without using those skills even in a small dead end department.

It was better when the Taishou alpha ignored him completely outside business matters and planning for a mating Sesshoumaru refused to abide. But to support his brother was apparently to go against Hiroyuki. To be on good terms with Inuyasha was to alienate the anonymity of his father's neglect.

The mindless job was further punishment for usurping the position Hiroyuki believed should always be his in Inuyasha's life. Once again their alpha failed to realize that Inuyasha had made his own choice for his life. Sesshoumaru had not pursued or seduced the hanyou away from a set of parents who loved him. He was not a villain, just a scapegoat in this parody of family drama.

Sesshoumaru heaved a sigh as he shrugged the blue polo over his shoulders and dragged his braided silver hair out of the collar. Tugging the front down and smooth over his upper torso to cover the waist band of the khaki pants that were the closest to casual the alpha would allow.

"Hey bastard! You ready yet?" Inuyasha hollered from the door he'd just let himself in through. Sesshoumaru had given the hanyou his own key so he could come and go as he pleased, but Inuyasha rarely stayed over more than two nights a week. It wasn't for lack of accommodations or even space.

The first night after Inuyasha had walked out of the Taishou estate, Sesshoumaru had taken the boy out to purchase the necessary pieces required to furnish the never used spare room. There had been a bed in a style he preferred, a dresser for storage of clothing and a desk for study. After the first month, Inuyasha had preferred to spend the majority of his nights elsewhere and Sesshoumaru didn't begrudge him the choice or his absence. He was just thankful the reality hadn't been communicated to their father. There was little doubt his stipend from the pack _and_ his salary would plummet unreasonably if the alpha found out that Inuyasha wasn't staying with his brother and still wouldn't return to the pack estate.

"This Sesshoumaru might remind you that of the two of us, you're the one with history for tardiness," he quietly protested his brother's efforts to rush him. "The work day has just ended."

"I still can't believe he refused to let you go back to school," Inuyasha gruffly glowered at the ink sketch left waiting on Sesshoumaru's easel. "It wasn't your fault you didn't go back after that first year."

"It is not necessary for this Sesshoumaru to pursue further accreditation in business even to hold the CEO position," the elder brother returned. "It would be beneficial, but it isn't required."

"I don't care," Inuyasha declared pointedly. "If he was just going to stick you in Accounting he should have just let you keep taking classes. It would be a more productive use of your time."

Sesshoumaru bit his tongue discreetly as he turned to grab a temperature appropriate jacket. "Ours is to do as the alpha dictates, not to protest his directives or question his motives."

"That's bullshit!" Inuyasha growled. "You were alpha and you never told us what to do unless it was to keep us safe!"

"Perhaps," Sesshoumaru let loose a sigh. The conversation was pointless. Sesshoumaru wasn't alpha right now, Hiroyuki was. A pack the size of the Taishou pack couldn't be managed in the same way as a pack of single digits. That wasn't even taking into account the reality of the Taishou social standing and obligations that would not be accompanying their little faction when they broke from it. Things were simpler in a smaller pack, but they were also more vulnerable too.

"Come on Sesshoumaru," Inuyasha huffed. "This is wrong! You don't deserve to be treated like this any more than I deserved to be used as a tool to fix the public image of the company or Kikyou deserved to be accused of mercenary behavior."

"Perhaps not," Sesshoumaru roused himself enough to argue caution to his younger brother. "But we cannot yet afford to be independent of father's pack yet. Kikyou has not acquired her degree, you still has at least another year left on yours and my mate isn't ready for us to join her yet."

"But-"

"The situation is unpleasant, but it is not intolerable," the elder inu cutoff the younger. Though Sesshoumaru did wish he could at least afford more than paper and ink for his art. His mate had offered to send him either funds or materials and Juuro-sensei had suggested he take up another apprenticeship like he'd had in Brisbane, but Sesshoumaru couldn't afford to work for materials and lessons. He needed to eat.

"Where's the rest of your art?" Inuyasha demanded as he nosed through the apartment. It was strange of the hanyou to notice what wasn't and had never been kept in their living space. "You should have more than the one piece. Are you keeping them somewhere else?"

"Materials cost money," Sesshoumaru commented as he worked to shove Inuyasha out the door after grabbing his keys. The new fob his mate and pup had gifted him for Christmas dangled brightly from the collection of cut metal. He and Inuyasha both had received a laminated paper crane marked with the stylized sakura blossoms that had been Sesshoumaru's signature before he'd taken up art. The key chains both had already featured one key, that of the house that had finally been completed. It had been live able for months as mother and pup had stayed on-site at the earliest possible opportunity, but some of the cosmetic work on the interior had not been finished until November. "Money is tight."

"What? What are you talking about? Your monthly stipend should be enough to cover living expenses and the salary from your job would be icing on the cake," Inuyasha studied his elder brother.

"This one's stipend was significantly reduced upon return to the country," Sesshoumaru admitted blandly. He refused to elaborate beyond that. He was capable of feeding himself, he had proper clothing to last. Art was perhaps a greater passion than most hobbies, but it was not a necessity. He could live without metal work or wood carving or enameling jewelry for his mate, though it had been upsetting that he hadn't the necessary materials to construct a new pin for the latest hanyou his mate had doctored. It hurt to think she would believe he no longer supported her efforts and he had made sure to explain his lack to her fully. And that had hurt too, to be insufficient in a way that effected his ability to support his mate. The explanation had been the moment she came aware of how close he was to losing the special phone he kept specifically to speak with her. "Art is not as necessary as food and shelter."

"He's punishing you," Inuyasha gasped. "Because I won't go home he's given you a mind-numbingly crappy job and locked you into it by making it so you can't survive without it!"

"Inuyasha-"

"Damnit! If he wants to be mad at someone, it should be me! You didn't make me-"

"Inuyasha! He cannot retaliate against you without admitting that you can think for yourself as an individual completely separate from himself and Izayoi," Sesshoumaru cut him off as they made it to the ground floor of his building. "It is more comfortable for him and her to believe I somehow orchestrated everything, that I have brainwashed you or some other means of controlling you."

"And my demanding you be present only supports that idea," Inuyasha mumbled to himself. "Even though you never say anything?"

"Hiroyuki gives many commands without saying a word, Inuyasha. Why wouldn't this Sesshoumaru also be capable of the same since I too am no more than an extension of himself in his eyes?" he tried to explain without making their father out to be worse than Inuyasha already believed him to be. The elder dog wasn't particularly heinous or evil, just out of touch with the world unrelated to business. "My mere presence could be enough to insure a specific result if I were blackmailing you or holding some other threat over your head. There is a reason similar situations keep recurring in fiction and movies. The courts are plagued with just that sort of plot being penalized after discovery."

Inuyasha's car sat purring next to the curb, the door man watching sharply over it to prevent theft or ticketing. "I don't like it," he growled as both inu climbed into the low set sports car before the hanyou threw the stick into gear, merging into traffic. "You are pack, hell, you're the heir. You never should have been booted out of the estate in the first place."

"Hn," Sesshoumaru responded carefully as he tried to keep the grip on the door and dashboard loose enough to avoid damaging the surfaces. Inuyasha's driving was aggressive and made him nervous.

"Nobody else has ever been ousted from the house unless they wanted to live separate," the younger inu continued as he flipped off a cab driver and swerved around a mini-coup. "Even the ones who have to pay rent manage to live outrageously luxuries lifestyles. Suzuki buys new designer shoes every other week and still manages to eat premium steak every day on her stipend. Katashi imports barrels of youkai brewed wine from Europe, employs a gourmet chef imported from India, and still manages to pay rent on a flat three times the size of yours."

"He also has a large share in father's company," Sesshoumaru felt the need to point out, not that Inuyasha heard it. Inuyasha was set on building his anger for a confrontation with a lying parent. Sesshoumaru understood, anger and frustration were effective distractions from the anxiety that likely plagued his brother otherwise. The problem was that Sesshoumaru didn't want his brother to champion this issue to their alpha, not with the emotions it was stirring up.

It was likely Hiroyuki would retaliate against Sesshoumaru again for it in some way.

The harrowing drive to their father's building came to a sharp end when Inuyasha whipped the cherry red, purring beast into the spot reserved for him and turned the engine off. "Let's get this over with," came the fierce grumble as the hanyou lead the charge past the security man attending the front desk by the express elevator to the office up top. They both walked into the close confines of the small car that only went to one floor.

Sesshoumaru had always thought the special executive elevator was a foolish thing to place in a building. Logistically it made very little sense. If viewed from the standpoint of safety or maintenance, it made even less sense. For the efficiency of the business as a whole, it was pointless to have one elevator that stopped only on the ground and the top floor. Statistically there were far more people entering the building who needed to stop at other floors before ever reaching the top office. There couldn't be near enough partners or clients heading up that high to warrant an express elevator, but still, the Taishou building had one.

Inuyasha continued to grumble under his breath as the numbers rose to indicate the nearing confrontation with the recalcitrant alpha who was withholding Inuyasha's tuition and monthly stipend at present. Sesshoumaru would rather his brother be angry for himself than for the alpha's treatment of the elder of them. The transgressions against the hanyou were sufficient for the separation. Adding Sesshoumaru's living situation to Inuyasha's ire might serve to remove them from the pack entirely before they were ready for severance.

The very efficient and semi-pleasant woman that served as their father's secretary directed them to enter as the boss was awaiting them with the hanyou's mother in company.

Sesshoumaru took a deep breath of air not tainted by female histrionics. Sometimes he wondered if the woman were capable of holding a single conversation with Inuyasha without resorting to tears. When she was happy, she cried. When she was saddened, she cried. He'd yet to see her angry, but even frustration could bring tears to some human females.

"Keh," Inuyasha shrugged before pushing open the great door to the massive office Taishou Hiroyuki maintained at the top of the building.

It was large enough to contain a conference table, four monitors capable of international communication set in front of a furniture grouping to make conversation easy, a mahogany desk large enough to substitute for a King size bed, and a series of model-sized mock ups of past and future buildings to be part of the Taishou business empire. The largest part of the office was the open space in between everything in it. It wouldn't do for the CEO to feel crowded, Sesshoumaru mentally scoffed.

"Inuyasha, my boy," Hiroyuki called from opposite the ridiculously large desk. Izayoi smiled at her son from where she stood behind his chair. "Good of you to come visit."

"Visit my ass," Inuyasha grumbled. "You're withholding my stipend and tuition."

"Don't fuss the details," the alpha ordered sharply.

"It's not a detail!" Inuyasha protested. "This is my life and education here, black mail is a low down dirty-"

"Your father has done you a great favor!" Izayoi cut in seemingly happily. "You'll love it. We want the best for you and he's found a way to make you happy again."

"Bull shit!" Inuyasha snorted.

"Watch your language!" Hiroyuki warned his son. "You may leave, Sesshoumaru," the alpha pointedly dismissed the elder son.

"Glad this is over," Inuyasha muttered as he turned to follow his elder brother out.

"Inuyasha stay," came the order and both brothers returned to the space in front of the larger than useful desk. "I said you could leave, Sesshoumaru." Again, both brothers turned away from their father. "Inuyasha!"

"Look, old man! I ain't staying without Sesshoumaru," Inuyasha glowered at his parents. "I don't trust either of you as far as I can throw you." Which was a great deal farther than the average person saying the same line. "You are liars and thieves, petty tyrants so lost in your own world you can't see daylight anymore. I'd like to stay grounded firmly in reality and Sesshoumaru maintains that."

"I've never lied to you when it wasn't for your own good," Izayoi began to cry.

"Knock of the water works," Inuyasha responded gruffly. "Since when is lying good for anybody? You don't want me to know something don't say anything, but don't try to pretend altruism with me. You wouldn't know the truth of the word!"

"Enough," Hiroyuki snarled. "This was not the topic of today. Perhaps it is as well that Sesshoumaru remain present. It is his failure to remain un-mated that brought this blessing to you after all."

"Keh," came Inuyasha's suspicious end to the previous argument that never seemed to find resolution, just postponement.

"You have been honored with an Omiai arrangement," Hiroyuki began. "The young lady is of unquestionable breeding and stands as the eldest daughter of a wealthy family in Russia."

"No, you did not go there," Inuyasha's words shot from his mouth with venom.

"She's a very good catch and was raised as a princess, fit to be your bride," Izayoi continued, slowly recovering her better mood. "And you can be certain she knows what's expected of her, having been raised to it."

"This union will bring great benefits to the pack and the business," Hiroyuki added. "It is about time you mated and after proving capable of retaining a long term relationship with that unsuitable female we have decided it would be best for you to mate through this arrangement. You will, of course, be required to court the young female in her home country which will give you plenty of time to get that lower wench out of your system. It is believed it best we hurry this match along. You will be ready to leave within the week."

"I will not!" Inuyasha yelled. "I'm not eligible to mate some foreign princess as I already have a mate!"

"We have not approved of any other female-" Hiroyuki began to yell back needlessly.

"I'm over the age of twenty, old enough to vote on government, old enough to drink and old enough to mate whoever the hell I want!" Inuyasha hurled back and Sesshoumaru wondered if it would be beneficial to wander over to the conference table to sit and watch the travesty unfolding. There was little doubt that even mating Kikyou without the alpha's approval wouldn't oust Inuyasha from the Taishou pack. Izayoi wouldn't let go, and the alpha would concur. "When you decided to lie about Kikyou, you lost any right to dictate who I mated! You have no say! It is done!"

"You can't be serious!" Izayoi refused to believe her Inuyasha would do something she saw as incredibly foolish. "She is absolutely unworthy of you."

"Watch what you say," the hanyou warned flatly. "She is my mate. She cares about me the way I am instead of trying to make me out as some throwaway prince in your pocket."

"Do not disrespect your mother!" Hiroyuki broke in.

"Respect is earned," Inuyasha countered. "And it certainly isn't earned by petty cretins who retaliate against the innocent for situations they don't like. Punishing Sesshoumaru for my refusal to return to the estate is like a toddler throwing a tantrum in a candy store because he can't get _every_thing he wants. He is your heir, maybe you should stop penalizing him for your shortcomings."

"You should be my heir," Hiroyuki returned.

"He is first born son," Inuyasha returned. "And better suited to the job. You don't actually think the pack would accept a hanyou who wasn't raised to the job, do you?" he scoffed disdainfully. "That's why you sent Sesshoumaru to all those fancy schools isn't it? That's why you forced him to suffer through all those boring business dinners and parties meeting and shmoozing the partners. So he could take over when you kick it!"

"He stole your birth rite! It should have been yours!" Hiroyuki insisted and Sesshoumaru glanced quickly away from the heated expression on his father's face. It was true in a way. Hiroyuki's heir should have been born from his mate Izayoi. That Inuyasha came too late to be first was something the alpha held against Sesshoumaru.

"It ain't my birth rite and I don't want it! I want my mate and a family that relates properly to each other!" Inuyasha hollered back. "Sesshoumaru is your heir and he's been your heir since birth. He was born for that purpose. Start treating him like it why don't you!"

"He is hardly ideal for the job," Hiroyuki blew the words off.

"How the hell would you know?" Inuyasha growled. "When have you spent any time with him when you weren't forcing him to do things against his will? Grandfather knew him better than you." The hanyou glared hotly at the pair standing against the windows behind the wide expanse of dead and polished wood. "Release the funds for my stipend, tuition and The rest of Sesshoumaru's due stipend, you bastard. Try not to further screw up your last duties as a father since you failed in every other way." Inuyasha turned toward the door and Sesshoumaru rose to his feet. "Come on, brother. I think I owe you a big dinner for this insanity."

"So he does blackmail you into doing as he bids," Izayoi observed sadly.

"Hell no! I pay him for coming here with me 'cause he hates your ass just as much as I do right now," Inuyasha declared with a fierce look. "Dragging him down here during his very limited free time to put up with you lousy people deserves the best dinner I can pay for every time! More if you are particularly bad!"

Izayoi's sharp inhalation of breath punctuated the sudden addition of salt in the air, but Inuyasha was already out the door, one hand clasping Sesshoumaru's shoulder in a gesture that might have looked friendly but was really a way to hurry the elder along. Inuyasha wouldn't leave Sesshoumaru behind, but he wanted out. The secretary beyond the door smiled at them with just a smidge of amusement that announced quite clearly that the conversation had been overheard and she approved. Sesshoumaru didn't begrudge her the eaves-dropping as he hadn't personally said a thing.

Inuyasha, on the other hand, flushed scarlet. "Sorry you heard that," he apologized to the secretary. The hanyou's manners were impeccable though occasionally rough in their execution. The Higurashis had taught him much, but Kikyou was teaching him more.

The little secretary just smiled wider before offering congratulations to the hanyou on his mating.

"Shit! I wasn't supposed to give that away!" Inuyasha's eyes widened comically. "Kikyou's going to kill me!"

"You weren't going to tell this Sesshoumaru?" the elder inu inquired mildly after nodding to the female they passed to board the express elevator once again.

"I was, just at dinner after this. I wasn't supposed to tell dad," Inuyasha ducked nervously. "Kikyou's going to give me hell for this. It was my idea not to tell the alpha and then I go and tell the bastard anyway." The hanyou groaned in disappointment with himself. "He's going to make it an issue with her family, you know he will. And they're still against me."

"Then the two of you will just have to live with this Sesshoumaru," Sesshoumaru dropped the words with a shrug before leading the way out of the elevator. "You should call and warn her immediately though," he advised as they made it back out to Inuyasha's car. "Father works fast when he is displeased with something."

"How fast? Wait, when did he cut your pack allowance?" Inuyasha demanded.

Sesshoumaru merely glanced at the hanyou over the car as they both climbed in the vehicle. "Make the call, Inuyasha. Now, before you even start the car."

"Shit," mumbled Inuyasha as he pulled out his cell. There were no further words needed on the subject between the two. The reality was self-evident by the advised action.


	43. Breakthrough

A brief announcement: Though there have been many supportive and delightful positive anonymous reviews, I have been flamed anonymously twice more this last week. Once for the AUTHOR'S NOTE in the first chapter and the first chapter of this story and once for the start of _Somewhat Happy Endings_. I'm tired of the abuse from people who aren't REALLY reading the story or expect more technical information than was ever intended to be included. So, despite the fact I've tried to put up with it for this long, I'm going to block/delete all anonymous reviews from here out. This will not effect site members who log in, but those of you who don't will be unable to communicate with me any more. I'm sorry for those who've sent me all those wonderfully encouraging reviews anonymously, I'm unwilling to leave up the only avenue through which abuse can reach me. Signed flames are a lot rarer than unsigned ones. IT kind of batters that deep belief in the good of people. And the stress tends to run me off my writing which you all hate. So I'm being selfish and closing the anonymous avenue.

I never meant to have _Paper Cranes _stand as a conclusive portrayal of PTSD. Kagome's experiences post trauma are not the same as everyone else's because she is not everyone. Her case of PTSD/delayed onset PTSD is similar to at least one person, who has been very supportive, but should not be taken as an all inclusive example. I'm not even delving into all of her symptoms explicitly as I only desired to raise the awareness that PTSD can be caused by other traumas than the most publicized one associated with combat. The real point is to show that you _can_ get past trauma, all feelings are valid and everybody has the right to get through life the best they can. All paths are open so long as you can live with yourself at the end of the day and you don't hurt anybody else unduly. It won't be easy, but it can be done.

Calendar: May

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Breakthrough**

Kagome stood smiling behind the ribbon as the crowd waited eagerly for the end of the ceremony that marked the grand opening of her hanyou specific clinic. She wasn't the one who was going to cut the ribbon. Most of her sponsors had been surprised when she refused the honor, but she didn't want to be the one in front of the cameras. She didn't want her work focusing on her instead of on the patients she would be saving.

To that end, Kagome had asked that the parents of her first hanyou friend be flown in to open the place. She'd named the clinic after him, it was only right that his parents cut the ribbon in his place. The secret miko certainly wouldn't have pursued hanyou medicine if it wasn't for having known him and she wanted credit given were it was due.

Ginta stood beside her, squeezing her hand in excitement. He was down for the next few years, determined to learn all he could. The wolf had postponed his year away from the pack in order to wait for Hakkaku to come with him. Both were staying with her and Rin. Nominally they all lived from the house, but honestly they spend more time at the clinic. The weeks leading up to the grand opening had been filled with the careful transport of the hanyou patients already under Kagome's care to the new facility and neither one had responded well to the transplantation.

One of the two, the one who'd barely made it to the hospital was an on-going problem. Teddy's mother was a tortoise who had mated a human male. The pair had produced two children before Theodore, but both of the prior births barely lived out the first year. When Teddy had reached his first birthday without the issues that had killed his older siblings. Winston and Georgia Helmsley had hoped their son had made it successfully beyond the most troublesome age.

Unfortunately, at eighteen months, Teddy had a seizure. The first was followed by a second and then a third in quick succession. Knowing the signs of impending death, Winston and Georgia quickly headed for the hospital in the family car, unwilling to wait for an ambulance after it had already proven too slow for their first two children. Winston drove like a rational mad man, obeying stop lights, but not speed limits. Sadly, his impatience after waiting for one red light kept him from checking for someone running the red light crosswise the minute his light turned green. The family car had been t-boned on his side.

Teddy and Georgia made it to the hospital, Winston died at the scene.

There would be no more sons or attempts at more children for Georgia and Winston. Teddy was all the living proof of their relationship and Kagome was determined to keep him alive. The mixing of reptile and human blood was fighting against her.

Kagome managed to figure out that the seizures each of Teddy's previous siblings had gone through was due almost entirely to the rapid change in body temperature from warm to cold effecting the chemicals in their brains. Teddy needed a way to stay at one steady temperature rather than jumping back and forth from the temp normal for his mother and that of his father. Hell, even a method of slowing the temperature change would be better than what his body did on its own now.

Thankfully Kagome had finally found a few methods to use for youki suppression that were fairly gentle. A medicine man from Northern Canada, one she'd tried to reach for months, informed her of some fairly rare weed that temporarily weakened a youkai's aura. A weather witch in Central America had produced some special beads she imbued with a fairly small amount of human power that caused the same effect when worn near the skin. And a short conversation with her grandfather about the proper uses of sutra gave her several options to try.

Each had different effects and mechanisms to achieve what they were supposed to do. The herbs worked well for very short-term suppression before the natural metabolism of most youkai burned through the effects. The beads had to be installed and removed by the same person which would require someone to stay with the hanyou wearing them for the interim. The sutra were better used on a room or terribly large bodied youkai like the second of her patients.

Teddy was finding his path to long term health by using a bracelet of the beads for varying durations of time. Kagome hoped to find him some middle ground so they could start training his body into the sort of self-regulation he would need to survive independent of the beads. The herbs were used mostly in emergencies when his temperature spiked too much in one direction or the other. It seemed a more successful treatment for his seizures than the medicines typically used in human cases.

Her other patient was twelve and already taller than Kagome, though it was hard to tell with the slouch always disguising it. Even with the poor posture, Lacey generally looked her doctors and nurses directly in the eye. Her height had made her dreadfully self-conscious and the slouch was a direct result of that. As if being hanyou weren't enough by itself.

Lacey's health had been fine until she somehow managed to pick up chicken pox from the school her mother worked at. The childhood disease was apparently making the rounds and while Lacey had never been there, her mom had carried it home.

Kagome didn't have enough beads to make something that would sufficiently suppress the larger hanyou's youkai half. Lacey had bulk as well as height and her father's people were mustang youkai brought over by the Spanish in their "pioneering" days. The secret miko had resorted to sutra on the walls of Lacey's room to cleanse the air she breathed of pollution and keep her germs from escaping to the rest of the clinic. Another set of sutra written to suppress youki had been wrapped around Lacey's wrists and ankles.

Lacey had complained of feeling immensely worse after the sutra first took effect, but her health had improved rather quickly after that. Instead of being both fevered and unbearably itchy, she'd just been mildly tired and irritated and the itching skin had responded well to a simple baking soda bath. The hanyou was well on the road to recovery, but Kagome was refusing to send her home until she was completely over it. The last thing Lacey needed was to suffer a relapse at home that would kill her.

Ginta nudged her shoulder before subtly directing her attention through the crowd of attendees to spot Teddy and his Aunt Cleo, from Britain. Cleo had flown in the minute she heard about her brother's death and the difficulties Theodore was having. It had surprised Kagome to learn no one outside Winston and Georgia even knew they had a living son. Cleo swore that if she'd known she'd have already been in the states treasuring every moment to be had with her nephew after the regret she felt for never having met his siblings.

Georgia had needed the support because the death of a mate was rough on a youkai's psyche. She fell into such a deep depression, Teddy seldom even saw her as she rarely had the energy to get out of bed. Cleo had been a godsend for both mother and child. In fact, Cleo had been selected to be the trustworthy person to put on and take off Teddy's beaded bracelet.

He was wearing it now, which was the only reason he was allowed to be out here, though Kagome had doses of the weed and a life support system standing at the ready should something set off his delicate condition.

Rin stood next to the little half-turtle in her usual fur, occasionally nudging his free hand whenever the mayor made some little remark they both understood. The speeches were a little drawn out and boring, even for Kagome, but every grand opening required its share of pomp. The Saotomeh Institute of Medicine for Hanyou Health was no exception. Many of the staff brought on board before opening were already affectionately calling it SIMHH.

Kagome was planning to sleep on-site again tonight and both wolves and Rin planned to join her.

Ginta had applied for and was granted admission to the medical school here. His continued dedication to a goal established in his mid teens after meeting Kagome was amazing in her eyes. It shouldn't be though, Kagome had made her own decision around the same age and look at her now. He'd badgered everyone of her sponsors and mentors and former advisers until all had agreed to help him follow in her footsteps.

Hakkaku was enrolled in the nursing program and planned to work out here with her before even finishing the program. Wolves were big on kids and he was no different. Hakkaku was fascinated with the work she was doing and the patients she got. There were so many variations to what types of individuals could wind up at SIMHH.

The same two parents could produce children with a multitude of different problems based on the different ways a specific youkai and human mixed. While one child born of an inu and a human was born with ears, claws, and fangs to show his heritage another sibling might follow with none of those but have a tail, awkwardly bent legs, and fur instead. Each would have problems specific to themselves and the variations astounded everyone confronted with it.

Miriam-sensei had gone back to Canada, trying to talk her daughter into bringing her three children to the Institute. Kagome had tried to caution that those three might be better off staying where they are while she instead sent the necessary materials and conferred with their attendant doctor. Many hanyou weren't stable enough to move.

She welcomed the ones who were and the ones who were close enough to come to her during emergency, but it was often better to leave the children in the first location they were stabilized. Kagome had insured her office here was set up with top of the line communication systems. No matter where in the world a physician called from, Kagome could now confer with them at any time. Such could quickly become a job that allowed no sleep, but SIMHH wasn't widely known yet. She hadn't built up a reputation of success or put out papers of useful, tested theories. Vaughn-sensei was working on that.

Publishing papers about medical procedures that had been tried with some success were normally put off until each could be more widely tested. Her sponsors were pushing to publish for peer review mostly to get the word out that the new field existed at all. Hanyou medicine existed and the only way for it to become widely practiced or even tested was for it to reach the largest number of doctors possible. Physicians couldn't suggest or advise patients with a special need to try something without knowing the possibilities themselves.

Kagome was just thankful that her picture was being kept out of it and her name, while principal developer and tester, was not alone on the research or the paper. She wasn't doing this for the recognition. She just wanted everybody to have a fighting chance at life.

The speeches wore down and the scissors in Saotomeh Hayate's hand snipped through the red ribbon, opening the clinic named in honor of his son. Saotomeh Ayumi stood next to her spouse with tears running down her face, her hand resting on Hayate's shoulder drawing and giving support in the same gesture. Applause filled the reception area with its bright clean colors and metal wall plaques and sculptures. The room held some chairs and tables for family members and conversation, but Kagome was more proud of the room that came off the large, respectable lobby.

Maxwell had outfitted it with carefully crafted and whimsical structures designed for play, climbing and creativity. The built in, heavy duty book shelf housed books for every age group and the room was dotted with the natural forms of youkai, storybook characters and fanciful insects. Rin and Teddy had already been over everything in it, from the secret little cubby in the floor under the ladybug bridge, to the tree house next to the book shelf. Kagome had initially wanted to protest the idea of something not floor level, but was overruled by Nonny and Max. When half her sponsors and three of her future nurses chimed in on their side in favor of it, she'd shut up. And when she saw it, she felt better about it.

The floor of the little tree house was at maximum two feet above the floor, and the rope ladder was supplemented by a winding set of stairs in the trunk against the wall. A slide facilitated a quick exit and the hole thing was bound by a very sturdy metal fence bolted to the platform floor and the wall the higher level was built against. She couldn't imagine any toddler with healthy bones could seriously hurt themselves on it unless they were trying. Rin climbed into the thing as easily in her natural fur and as the humanoid shape she'd proudly achieved and strengthened over time. The little over achiever.

The crowd broke up to explore the facilities and public rooms. The two inhabited rooms were farther from the lobby and cordoned off for privacy. Everything left public would have to be sterilized again before allowing another patient to use them, but it was worth it for the publicity. At least that's what Kagome had been told.

The Saotomeh's approached Kagome with weak smiles and broke with the ingrained culture to hug her tightly to them. "I always knew you were something different," Hayate began quietly, his voice thick with emotion and hope. Neither Hayate or Ayumi had dared to try for another child since they lost Kagome's friend Shin. Perhaps now that there were theories and treatment plans being developed they would regain the courage to build the family both had always wanted. "We knew it when you got him to start talking again."

"I remember when he came home complaining that you had told him he was going to marry you," Ayumi sniffled. "He was so angry, but I knew he was secretly pleased that you thought he was worth it. He'd been so down on himself before, but he was happy again after meeting you. We'd thought his life wouldn't be the tragedy we feared it would be. You gave that to us and now you've given us hope that no one else will have to fall like Shin."

"I'm not so special," Kagome smiled back at the watery pair, hand clasped tightly around Ginta's arm. "Without Shin, none of this would have happened," she added earnestly. "I never would have thought to do it if Shin hadn't suffered the way he did." Kagome smile turned mischievous for a moment, "And I really would have made him marry me!"

Both parents laughed, "You would have made a wonderful daughter," Ayumi smiled. "Too bad someone else will have the privilege of adding you to their family instead."

"You call on us if you need anything," Hayate added sternly. "What you're doing is going to change the world for us and we don't want anything to get in the way of that."

"We mean it, Higurashi-chan," Ayumi added with an effort to stop the tears leaking down her face. "Anything at all, we'll be around the world in a minute."

"Thank you," Kagome bowed in gratitude. "But I don't think that will be necessary. I have many friends right here." She nudged Ginta purposely and he grinned bashfully. "The next crop of doctors is already eagerly waiting to learn everything I have so as to spread it farther than one place in California. We'll keep looking for solutions to the problems the hanyou condition presents so they'll all have a chance to live. We're not there yet, but with every success we get a little closer!"

"With you at the helm, we can believe it," Ayumi's smile had lost the watery quality to it. Hayate smiled back at his mate and then carefully led her back to mingle with the crowd of politicians, local medical professionals, and the handful of members from the press.

This far out of the city, there hadn't been much interest from reputable papers and news stations and Kagome's sponsors had worked very hard to keep the information from the tabloids. The institute should really only matter to a fraction of the populace. Thus would only be news to the masses if they could assign some scandal to their doorstep. They were only lucky no one had caught wind of Carter-sensei's failed mating proposal.

Kagome was alternately relieved and saddened by finally having that whole situation over with. Rin had been a big help in putting it off as Carter-sensei was apparently reluctant to bring it up in front of the pup, but Rin couldn't be glued to the secret miko's side all the time. The pup had friends and playing to do. Independence was important to foster in children, it allowed them to develop better understanding of their limitations and abilities.

Kagome knew that. Unfortunately, Kagome was also aware that a number of people wouldn't approach her when Rin was close and her first inclination was use that behavior. Therapy sessions with the professional Cheryl had suggested were far more enlightening than Kagome had believed they would be. When Kagome finally admitted she had a problem that needed a solution, Sesshoumaru had been guardedly supportive. At the time she'd been something of a powder keg about emotionally charged topics that dealt with her own vulnerabilities and resulting behaviors. Since admitting that, she understood his unwillingness to express too much enthusiasm.

As he was the cause of her current problems, seeming too enthusiastic might have inspired an emotionally defensive Kagome to attack him verbally. She didn't like admitting she hadn't dealt with her problems the way she'd thought she had. She hadn't handled the reality that she needed therapy particularly well. Many people didn't. Kagome had been on the outside of recommending various forms of physical and psychological treatment of trauma survivors before. Most reacted badly to the second as if the mere suggestion made them somehow inferior to the world.

She hadn't expected to react the same way when it was suggested that she might need more help than the support group and words in Cheryl's ear. Even when she finally accepted that Kagome truly did need more help than that to deal with the aftermath of her involuntary mating. Or rather, she needed help to first accept that she had been taken advantage of, and ignoring that fact had not prevented her subconscious from developing though patterns that were neither healthy nor helpful.

There was the serious issue with touching any person, especially males, outside the bounds of her roll as a certified healer. She could see now, how it had started with that night, and she had covered it up from herself as being foreign to her native culture. It was wrong. Kagome could remember hugging friends in high school. She remembered occasionally leaning against Hojo during those long nights volunteering for the Safe Ride program at University. The fact was, before Sesshoumaru dosed and marked her that night, Kagome was able and willing to touch anyone she trusted and even a few she hadn't so much.

Later, there was her inability to deal with the deaths of two of her patients. Jeremy and Trevor's deaths were significant and should have saddened her, certainly. But Kagome had dealt with grief before. She'd lost friends and family early in her life. She knew death happened and was a part of life. She knew the world wasn't fair in its generalities and she'd always guarded herself against the harshness of reality by keeping appraised of statistics and seeing the world with clear eyes. Sesshoumaru had been right to call in the cavalry, she'd needed the support and the intervention.

That had been her first inkling something was off. Kagome had survived in the world, keeping her reiki hidden through the careful effort of maintaining her emotions at an arms distance and knowing her physical limitations. Passions broke her concentration and tore down her defenses. She knew that and had carefully guarded against it for so much of her life that she hadn't even broken down like that when her grandmother had died. She'd just wallowed in it.

Trevor's death had pushed her to the edge and Jeremy's had shoved her over it. Otherwise she never would have cried in front of anybody like that, not even her brother. Rather, especially not her brother after he'd laid into her like that about his wedding. She wouldn't have run to Cheryl's room for comfort. Kagome would have waited until she made it home, wept a little in her evening shower. It scared her how ungovernable her emotions had become in that moment.

Then came Katarin. In a lot of ways, Rin was a balm on Kagome's feelings, a band-aid for her self-esteem and brutalized ego. If not for Rin, Kagome might have sunk so far into research and theory she never would have applied anything to Teddy's case at all. She'd have let her sponsors and mentors do it for her without ever coming in contact with the patient being treated. It was why she was so obsessive about checking the ER for hanyou coming in everyday. Kagome was deceiving herself, proving to herself that she wasn't afraid to lose another patient by forcing herself to check for them all while hoping desperately that her resolve wouldn't be tested on each visit by the appearance of a new hanyou to fail.

She hadn't been aware of it, but she'd clung to Rin's need for her like a lifeline. She was superwoman because that coyote pup decided she was worthy of being a mother and needed her desperately. Every time Rin didn't like someone that wasn't Kagome's favorite person seemed a validation of her own character judgment.

Kagome had failed to realize that it was just as likely the pup's distrust and dislike was keyed off of Kagome's subconscious and unconscious body language. Youkai depended more heavily on the silent languages than humans did. Her therapist had been required to point this out before Kagome even thought of the possibility.

Kagome took a deep breath and let it out slowly before squeezing Ginta's hand. Hakkaku was standing with Rin and Teddy in the midst of the crowd and keeping track of time before Teddy's beads would have to come off.

"Are you all right, nee-san?" the wolf at her side asked quietly. His eyes directed as hers were, toward the crowd of milling reporters, politicians, doctors, and nurses. There were a number of parents present who had lost hanyou children. Kagome had invited all the ones she had met and liked hoping to help them find hope and closure after their losses. "I know you weren't really excited to be here."

"I'll be fine," Kagome answered evenly. Crowds were not her thing and never had been, though they had not always inspired the anxiety she was fighting now. It was another symptom she was struggling with. "Unpleasant duties are sometimes necessary for the things we want in life."

"Perhaps," the younger male conceded to her greater experience. Kagome knew he didn't like that she had been required to be present for this. He let out a low growl when it became apparent the long-winded mayor of the closest town was making his way their direction.

"Dr. Higurashi," the oily human reached out a hand in greeting, clearly demanding a hand shake that he held long enough to be photographed. Despite the fact, the man made her skin crawl, Kagome smiled thinly at the camera before discreetly wiping her hand on her slacks. Then Ginta reached out and reclaimed it in his own. "This is a wonderful thing you are doing. Maybe now mixed couples can produce healthy children without fear."

Kagome wanted to glare at his overly white, veneered smile and correct his false interest in something he clearly didn't approve of. Perhaps another person might be fooled by his blasé handling of the words, but Kagome was trained to observe other things than just facial expressions and tone. His grip had been just a little too tight and his aura screamed of disgust with a spike in it just as he addressed her work. He didn't believe humans and youkai should mix. If they did it wasn't a draw back in his mind that their children had such low survival rates. In fact, this politician rather saw it as proof that his view was correct.

It probably hadn't occurred to him that child fatality rates in this exact region had been ridiculously high for all breed of family during pioneering days. If one followed his logic, such was proof that the land should not be settled in the first place. While Kagome disagreed with a lot of how settling was done, she very much doubted anybody had argued that line then.

But to betray anything so overtly negative in her words or expression would be terribly impolitic, especially with his pet cameraman about. The doors may officially be open, but saying the wrong thing to the wrong person would close them again in short order. "All children should be able to live without their own bodies getting in the way of that," Kagome responded pleasantly. "I hope someday this becomes a reality everywhere, but until then, we do what we can with the means at hand."

Kagome wasn't going to give specifics to laymen. Too many would use the words describing the process to inspire religious protest or civil unrest against what she was trying do. Her methods tapped into various religious systems that were not universally held or practiced. She made use of herbal remedies many believed were the antithesis of medicine or medical practice. Hell, she was going to start suggesting that hanyou borne of human mothers receive the same vaccines that human children did, which opened up that on-going debate. She'd rather limit the dissemination of her theories and techniques to those they mattered to rather than to the general public who might raise protest for things that didn't even apply to them or anyone they knew personally.

Why should people who'd never even encountered a living hanyou hear about the methods used in their medical care so long as it wasn't inherently torturous, harmful, or cruel? Which should be covered in the vow she took when Kagome became a doctor. "Do no harm" weren't just words thrown in to make it look good.

"Well they still haven't figured out how to cure even pure-blooded children of everything yet," the politician replied in a snide tone that indicated he thought her naïve and unduly idealistic. Basically he thought her young and unlikely to make this whole scheme successful for her perceived idealism.

"True, there are things now that children of every breed can't be cured of," Kagome wanted to add examples like "stupidity" and "arrogance" but restrained herself. "But we have managed to develop cures and treatments for very common ailments like chicken pox and pneumonia, things that are almost always fatal for hanyou children. We have managed to successfully treat one such child who will be sent home soon to resume her regular life. But our practices are still in the fledgeling stage. There is much left to work out before hanyou medicine will be capable of as many treatments and cures as human and youkai medicine."

Kagome had no worry that her terminology would confuse anyone. All those in attendance who weren't already familiar with her vocabulary idiosyncrasies had received a PR packet explaining the terms in use. Her sponsors had willingly allowed her that boon once she explained her reasoning. They'd chosen to explain it away to the press as a result of her foreign eccentricity or a lack of lingual understanding. Most would assume she didn't know the correct English words unless they knew her better. Kagome had already decided she was fine with that so long as her medical skills weren't called into question.

"Well, I'm sure the owners are already working toward that eventuality," the mayor added dismissively before giving his polite farewell and moved on to bigger fish to be photographed with.

Kagome wasn't offended to be considered inconsequential. She wasn't upset at being brushed off as less involved in the development process than he'd assumed. She didn't own the clinic, she just worked here. The owners and administrators made sure they had all the right permits and licenses. They kept her life outside SIMHH uncomplicated so she could focus more on her ultimate goal. Perhaps it was strange that her ambition didn't require her to claim full responsibility and therefor all accolades that came from it, but she didn't care to be famous, just to save lives.

Sesshoumaru and her housemate wolves understood, and that was enough...even though many of other other friends and sponsors understood it too. Clearly, politicians and celebrities would not, Kagome sent a dark look after the greasy male that had just left Kagome and Ginta behind.

"I feel like I need a shower, and I didn't even have to shake hands with the guy," Ginta rumbled quietly beside her, careful to make the sound low and unlikely to travel. There were other youkai in the room, some who were capable of causing them trouble. Kagome gave a wry smile and nodded her head gently as her former little squeezed her hand. "Come on, we should check up on Lacey. Poor thing was absolutely bummed out that she wouldn't get to attend."

"I couldn't risk it, her health is still so fragile and there are plenty of bug carriers in attendance. She would like it less to finally get over the chicken pox only to catch something else and extend her stay," Kagome murmured as Ginta tugged her down the hall discreetly to scrub up. There was even a shower available which Kagome was fairly certain they were going to compete over the use of. Ginta felt dirty from proximity to the oily politician, but Kagome had to shake hands with the guy.


	44. Kinship

And back to Japan...Where the families are all refusing to get along. You gotta love snobbery and prejudice. It makes it easy to find drama without a real villain. Hiroyuki's not evil, just a little deranged and seriously old fashioned. Izayoi's not evil, she's far too dependent on Hiroyuki for her opinions to be so. It's the same with all the characters in this story. Pure evil is incredibly rare. That doesn't automatically make everybody good either. It's all a rainbow of lights and darks. As Kagome realized a few chapters back, It isn't wise to trust everybody, but neither is it healthy to trust no one. It's a hard lesson, one that never seems to be mastered because there's always someone willing to exploit vulnerability and trust.

Calendar: September

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Kinship**

"Come on Kikyou!" Inuyasha called to his mate from across the pent house apartment. Sesshoumaru sat on the couch near the door waiting for both to finalize their preparations to leave. "We're going to be late! I don't think your family is going to be particularly forgiving at this point if we're not on time!"

"I don't care!" Kikyou hollered abruptly back. She'd been more than a little perturbed with her family since they'd blown up at her before last Christmas. Sesshoumaru's prophesy over their father's expedience in the face of displeasure had proven true. Kikyou had received a call from her parents in the middle of the call from Inuyasha and all connection with her family had been severed with harsh words and unreasonable demands.

The family had refused to acknowledge or support Kikyou and Inuyasha once they became appraised of the reality that their daughter had not only continued her relationship with the hanyou despite their expressed wishes, but made it permanent in the youkai way. Perhaps they would have been more receptive if Hiroyuki hadn't just been so hateful to them about it, calling Kikyou and their family by extension a bunch of opportunistic, mercenary, uppity, bottom feeders in the most insulting and vulgar terms.

Sesshoumaru didn't need to know the specifics to guess what had happened. Hiroyuki was venting like that toddler Inuyasha had called him, throwing a tantrum over something that couldn't be changed. Luckily, the Yoshida family were in one of the few business industries Taishou Hiroyuki had no real stake in. Their scent products had been around long enough to resist uninformed efforts to damage their reputation or their access to the venues they needed to turn a profit or produce their signature items.

There would have been no way to mend the breach if the family livelihood had been completely eliminated in a vindictive turn around Hiroyuki was secretly known for. The Taishou alpha had ruined more than his share of businessmen simply for not giving him what he wanted. He was just as ruthless with people who upset Izayoi in her efforts to raise money for one cause or another. Many a fledgeling company found themselves drummed out of viable existence because they didn't donate sufficient amounts to the alpha's mate and her pet cause of the week. It didn't matter if doing so would have crippled the company, no excuse was good enough for Hiroyuki.

Thankfully, the alpha wasn't a complete juggernaut. There were some avenues of business still resilient to his manipulations. Most celebrities survived all efforts to bring them down simply because even negative press was still good for them. The perfume industry remained buoyant and isolated from his power by mere virtue of what they sell. Homeopathic remedies remained an esoteric niche business, enough to avoid Hiroyuki's interest. A few other industries continued to steer clear of the Taishou alpha's influence or attention which Sesshoumaru believed was all to the good.

Unfortunately, Sesshoumaru's job was not immune to the alpha's displeasure as he had lost the position in accounting for no apparent reason. The loss of mindless occupation hadn't been mourned as much as their father likely believed it would be. Business management was a good degree to have in the work force as it stood now and the Sanctuary families had found him a shrine in desperate need of some direction. The pay came from the government, the work was rewarding and the environment was pleasant. The struggling shrine really needed better organization, marketing of its products, and more attention paid to the budget.

So far the shrine's business had perked up 20%. A modest uptick to be sure, but a significant one for a shrine. They saw more pilgrimage and had started taking orders on-line. Most of the shrine products were small handicrafts and charms blessed over by the resident priest. Sesshoumaru had suggested they start offering classes in traditional skills practiced in the everyday observances of the shrine rites. The charms were written in the same script and style as the sutra. The priest's son was skilled in the practice of ikebana and archery. His wife planned out the various tranquility gardens which had grown quite popular since the shrine's website had received its facelift.

Sesshoumaru enjoyed the work, even though very soon he wouldn't be needed to maintain their continued growth. It was supposed to be temporary from the start. No shrine could afford to maintain a full time manager that wasn't also a member of the family. It was all right with him. The Higurashi's had another shrine lined up for him to work with at the start of next month which would mark the end of his current effort.

"Don't say you don't care," Inuyasha tried to soothe his mate. "Kaede's worked so hard to get them to see us, don't you want to see her?"

"That's playing dirty, Inuyasha, and I don't like it!" Kikyou retorted from the confines of the bedroom she shared with her hanyou mate.

Sesshoumaru managed to refrain from smirking at their interaction. As suggested, Kikyou and Inuyasha had moved into his penthouse apartment. The offer had been genuine and the timing perfect because when the Yoshida's cut ties with Kikyou, they withdrew monetary support completely. Kikyou had been thrown out of the family home and Inuyasha had no other place to take her. Wherever else Inuyasha had been living, it was clear he couldn't add his mate to the imposition on his various friends. It was equally obvious that Kikyou herself wouldn't have put up with the nomadic life Inuyasha had been living. She needed that one space to retreat to that was familiar and safe. Hell, she'd needed both brothers around that first month after the family cut her off.

Family relationships were a headache when they weren't working properly, but Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru got her through the shock and hurt of her family's betrayal. They were old pros at it given their alpha's penchant to ignore the ties that bind unless he wanted something.

"They're your family," Inuyasha coaxed the petulant woman from the closet of clothes she'd been pawing through. "They're human and not perfect. They reacted to my dad's attack without thinking about the whole picture. That's normal."

"They are not sheep, damnit!" Kikyou growled back at the irritatingly calm hanyou. Normally he was the one flying off the handle. "They've been dealing with your father's insults and accusations for years already. Don't try to tell me they were right to react that way!"

"I'm not saying they were right, I'm saying they were blind-sided. They thought we broke up, remember," Inuyasha returned after a deep breath to strangle his temper. Sesshoumaru had advised the younger inu that it would be beneficial if only Kikyou acted emotionally, else they'd never leave the building. "You let them believe the problem was solved, that I was no longer around." Inuyasha hadn't cared about being a dirty little secret. It would have bothered him more if Kikyou had followed her parents' directive to stop seeing him.

"I never told them we broke up," Kikyou argued even as she reached for a loose dress and cardigan to wear over it.

"No, but you never told them we hadn't stopped seeing each other after they told you to quit," the hanyou reminded her. Sesshoumaru began to tug at a loose thread hanging off the cuff of his button down shirt. Dinner wasn't going to be a formal affair, but it behooved all three of them to make a good impression.

Kaede had indeed worked hard to get her parents to meet with Kikyou again. The teenager had labored for nine months to get her elders to admit that maybe they had acted a little hastily. It was good that at least one member of Kikyou's family could see straight through the heart of the situation else, Sesshoumaru's own efforts to mend what his father had torn asunder would not have been successful. Kaede had been crucial in their efforts to convince the elder Yoshidas to reconsider the sudden ejection of Kikyou from the fold over her choice of mate, a mate they had never given a chance before Taishou Hiroyuki poisoned the waters.

Many people would not have believed Sesshoumaru would see the benefit in renewing family ties for others after having given up on his own. The difference was that Kikyou's family had been close and supportive at one time whereas the members of the Taishou core never had been. There was no way to fix what had never worked.

But the Yoshidas should not break apart because of Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru's father. The Higurashis had agreed. Higurashi Kie had been of great help in the work done to mend bonds broken by outside elements. Without her, Sesshoumaru doubted the dinner tonight would ever happen. There was no way Sesshoumaru could approach Kikyou's family without their hostile suspicion barring them from listening to anything he said. Inuyasha was already removed from their grace because they projected their anger at the father towards the son. It was highly likely any other son would receive the same lack of welcome.

It was sad that it took so many people so much time to fix something that one person broke.

"Come on, Kikyou," Inuyasha's voice dropped to an octave Sesshoumaru hoped never to hear again. The growl was meant to entice a mate, the tone was seductive and Sesshoumaru never ever wanted to imagine his brother hitting on women let alone see it. It was almost as bad as walking in on his father and mother in a furry rendezvous all those years ago, only he was fairly certain Inuyasha wasn't about to attack him for observing the two of them in the common areas of their shared condo. "Don't you want to see Kaede? Don't you want your chance to explain our side of things? Lets go down, have a nice dinner, thank the people who went to so much trouble for us before we decide you still hate your parents."

"I don't hate my parents," Kikyou appeared fully dressed and properly made up, but incredibly lack-luster in her expression. "I just wish they had let me defend us before throwing me out!" At least they had already paid tuition for her final term before the breech occurred. There was no way Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru could have covered it for her, even with Sesshoumaru's restored stipend. She'd been able to finish up her degree, but the accomplishment had been tempered by the reality that neither of her parents bothered to celebrate her graduation.

Rent and groceries were covered by Sesshoumaru's stipend. With Inuyasha supplementing their joint income, Sesshoumaru was able to drive his own car to work. They jointly covered Kikyou's expenses for clothing and textbooks, but tuition would have been too much.

Sesshoumaru rose to his feet and glanced at the clock mounted by the outside door. "The Higurashis have promised to stall if necessary," he informed them, "but it would be best not to test their skill longer than required. It is poor manners to stress the hospitality of ones who have done you both such great favors."

"Keh," Inuyasha scoffed. "The Higurashis won't mind."

"No," Kikyou shook her head before reaching for her coat and purse. "He's right, we shouldn't take advantage of their kindness. Taking it for granted is a sure way to lose it." With every phrase, the woman visibly strengthened her resolve to handle this task that had been given to her. "And you're right, I do want to see Kaede. She's been having some trouble with girls at school, and the new boy has been making passes at her." Then she paused, chagrined, "She _was _having trouble. It's been months now. She may not even be in the same class as her problematic classmates. She may have even found a new boy to like."

"This Sesshoumaru does not believe the girl has made any significant strides in her peer relationships," the inu felt compelled to relate what little knowledge he had of the teen. Kaede was remarkably chatty about her troubles, giving him a brief overview before redirecting her attention to the business of getting her parents to acknowledge their haste in action. "She hasn't complained about anyone specific. Nor has their been any extensive or pointed praise towards anyone else." He'd have noticed repeated name droppage.

"You talked to Kaede," Kikyou stared at Sesshoumaru dumbfounded.

"Hn," Sesshoumaru smirked as he turned to lead the way out of the apartment. He'd said about all he was going to on the subject. He wasn't one to divulge secrets. Kikyou's question had obviously already been answered. Of course, he'd spoken to her sister, how else would he know the girl hadn't singled out any one antagonist or love interest without exchanging words on the subject. Or to be more accurate, receiving words on the topic. He didn't really offer any words in return. The girl talked to vent, not to receive advice or have a discussion.

"Really, Sesshoumaru," Kikyou demanded "what did you talk about? When did you see her? Is she all right?"

Sesshoumaru didn't answer while Inuyasha followed Kikyou onto the elevator after locking up. The hanyou smirked at his brother before his mate had the chance to turn around to face the doors. It didn't matter that the expression lingered because Kikyou would just assume he was smug at having gotten her to the elevator.

"Open up your mouth and talk to me!" Kikyou demanded growing increasingly frustrated with the silence. It was a diversion, a distraction from the coming encounter that made her nervous. "What did she say?"

"Nothing, this Sesshoumaru was given leave to pass on," he replied, but only after the elevator car reached the parking level. "You may ask her when we get there, if you find a private moment in which she might be willing to speak of such."

"She'll be there," Inuyasha grinned as he helped Kikyou climb into the back of Sesshoumaru's car before running around to climb in the other side beside her. "From what I hear, she picked the restaurant."

"Hn," Sesshoumaru agreed. "The child indicated it was a family favorite."

"The Higurashi's like it too, though a party as big as ours will probably clear the place out of other customers if things don't work out," Inuyasha added. "I can be loud."

Kikyou snorted delicately. "You are always loud," she mock-glared at him, "but if you are loud tonight they will have deserved it."

"That's my mate," Inuyasha reached over and hugged his lady close affectionately.

"Inuyasha, you're crushing my dress," Kikyou thumped him in the gut before settling against his shoulder.

Sesshoumaru pulled the car into traffic and took the most efficient route to the venue chosen for this reunion. He strove to keep his attention on the road and give his brother time to reestablish a working equilibrium with his mate. The coming confrontation was likely to be stressful for both, it was better if they found a way to face it as a united front. Kikyou and Inuyasha were formidable, but more so when united. Security in each other built a fortress around them that no one could touch. Hopefully, no one would be attempting to wedge them apart at this dinner, but Kikyou's parents hadn't agreed to accept the mating, just to meet the pair.

Sesshoumaru had to consciously release tension from his shoulders and loosen his grip on the steering wheel. The uneasy feelings of his pack were affecting him and at least one of their trio needed to be clear headed enough to properly judge between a family filled with hurt and parents attempting to be controlling. Sesshoumaru could identify both so long as he remained objective.

It was the elder inu's efforts to convey them all safely to their rendezvous point that made him the first to notice the problem three blocks from arrival. "Hn," he hummed, perplexed. Sesshoumaru was unable to identify precisely what the problem was, but he knew without a doubt their planned reunion in a quiet, private setting had somehow been blown.

"What is it?" Inuyasha asked from the back seat. Sesshoumaru couldn't decide if Inuyasha had developed the proper observational skills to detect subtle communication or if familiarity had informed the hanyou of the minor indications of Sesshoumaru change in moods. Somehow the younger brother had detected that the elder wasn't pleased by what had suddenly manifested to interfere.

"There appears to be a large crowd of paparazzi outside our destination," Sesshoumaru answered, carefully maneuvering his car past the drive into the restaurant designated parking lot. "I was unaware of any special events being held at this venue."

"They're not the type for this kind of publicity," Kikyou murmured, confused as to why a crowd of photographers would be stationed outside her family's favorite restaurant. "It's meant to be a family place, everything is understated. It's a hidden treasure only the locals are familiar with."

"Shit!" Inuyasha huffed.

"What, Inuyasha?" Kikyou turned to the male beside her in the back seat. "What do you see?"

"I see dad," Inuyasha glanced to the rear view mirror to catch Sesshoumaru's eye. "And mom. What the hell are they doing here?"

Sesshoumaru sighed as he took them around the block and parked discreetly down the street. "Is there a back entrance?" He asked Kikyou mildly as he put the car in park. He was incredibly glad for the sedate, mostly nondescript luxury car his grandfather had gifted him at high school graduation. Subsequent events had kept him from driving it much in situations where the celebrity hounds could learn to recognize it on sight else they would have already gained their own fleet of camera wielding harassment.

"There's a side door in the ally they used to keep open when the weather was warm," Kikyou responded as they climbed out onto the pavement.

"I'll call Higurashi-kaa-san and see if she can't convince the management to open that door for us," Inuyasha pulled out his cell as his other hand guided Kikyou to lead the way.

"I hope my parents have already arrived,"Kikyou sighed. It was likely the crowd of photographers and the presence of Hiroyuki and Izayoi would drive them off if they weren't already ensconced inside the restaurant.

"Hn, This Sesshoumaru hopes the owners have the good sense to pretend they're closed," he responded.

Kikyou sputtered in a mixture of shock and laughter. It was nervous energy finding its way free. "I don't know about the owners, but some of the regulars might give the game away before they have a chance of pulling the "closed to the public" bit."

"Too bad," Sesshoumaru opined rather seriously. It really was regrettable the owners couldn't bar the photographers and thus Hiroyuki and Izayoi from entering the establishment. Dinner would have been so much more pleasant without the two interfering crashers to stir things up negatively.

"We have the go ahead," Inuyasha told them after he hung up his phone. "Souta's going to sneak us in. It took some persuading, but when Kaede told the manager it was for Kikyou and her parents, he coughed up the key without issue. Doesn't seem the guy was too happy about having his restaurant hemmed in and blocked up by that rude bunch up front. He's more than aware the crowd impedes access to the parking lot." The hanyou sped up to walk beside his mate with a hand at her waist. He was offering comfort in this absurd situation, one he needed comfort in as well. Inu were fairly tactile in close relationships, and the need for touch increased with the stress of a situation. "The wait staff and manager are in something of a polite snit over the ruckus. I guess when Souta lets us in, half the staff and most of the other costumers plan to sneak out. The manager gave his permission after Kaede made the suggestion. No need for others to be stuck in our family insanity. Bad enough the Higurashis are stuck on this ride."

"Are any of the shrine family planning to flee?" Sesshoumaru inquired mildly as they came up alongside the back portion of the building. He hadn't been entirely ecstatic at the inclusion of some members of the Higurashi clan. Kie was certainly worth including, she was instrumental in the mending of the Yoshida family bonds to this point. She had vouched for Inuyasha and himself so strongly that Kikyou's mother had been willing to consider that sons were not reincarnations of the father.

The eldest male was welcome as the old man provided a stabilizing influence to those around him once the initial excitement of meeting passed. Besides which, he needed to get out some.

Souta was welcome and helpful, provided one could leave out his rather self-centered and useless wife. Hiromi wasn't necessarily incapable of anything productive. She was quite apt at alienating people by detailing things about herself and her life most would prefer never to hear. One visit was all that was required to become apprised of how often she and her husband made attempts to get pregnant. Fifteen minutes had her expounding on the hardship of her two miscarriages since their wedding.

Sesshoumaru didn't doubt that miscarriage and the loss of the unborn was a severe hardship for the parents and close family, but he also believed that something so private should be saved for at least a true friendship rather than a first time acquaintance.

Inuyasha tapped on the outside of the door, which quickly opened to release a stream of people in a hurry to escape the possibility of appearing in a tabloid or being subjected to the advent of a family feud. If Taishou Hiroyuki and Izayoi thought their wealth and influence would win them any ground here, they were wrong. The Yoshidas were known here, they were loved and respected. The handful of servers and patrons that stayed behind would support them over the anonymously wealthy tabloid magnets. Not everything printed about the Taishou alpha and mate was positive. Not every action they took was something people who frequented a quiet, unassuming place such as this would approve of or condone.

The family was gathered in the main dining space with a semi-clear view out the front windows at the growing circus brewing outside. "What is the meaning of this?" Yoshida Osamu demanded. "This was promised to be an informal meeting for our family. Nothing was said about the inclusion of that- that-" his vernacular failed to muster a proper descriptor.

"Hateful Cur!" Yoshida Miwa had no such failing.

"This Sesshoumaru does not understand how they could have even an inkling as to what was planned this night. Communication with the alpha and his mate hasn't been conducted outside of short obligatory meetings to release pack funds for living expenses. No words have been exchanged beyond the financial needs of our small faction of the pack. Inuyasha has refused all calls from those two. This Sesshouaru shared no details of this meeting or any others," the elder inu explained patiently, careful not to patronize the two humans with tone or expression. "Our sire's intelligence network should not have been capable of discovering the time or location of this meeting."

The scent of cold sweat and anxiety threaded through the crowd of people hovering inside the dining room. Amber eyes turned to the source and silently demanded explanation of the guilty expression settled across Higurashi Hiromi's face. "Hiromi?" Souta asked his wife after a prolonged silence marked the sudden redirection of everyone's attention.

"I was doing what your mom asked me to, updating the records on received donations and noting the ones who hadn't donated in a few years," Hiromi defended herself. "I came across a record with the Taishou name and noted their last donation had been several years ago, but had been yearly before that. I knew the Taishou heirs visited often so I wondered why. I called the name on the file hoping that it was some simple oversight that could be corrected with a friendly reminder."

"We don't harass our donors into giving money," Kie exclaimed horrified. "Donations have always been at will."

"I wasn't harassing anybody!" Hiromi protested. "Taishou-sama was really thankful to hear from me and quickly corrected the oversight!"

"And where in such negotiations did the topic of tonight's dinner come into play?" Kikyou demanded, quite annoyed.

"Well it's only polite to express interest in a donor's personal concerns," Hiromi responded. "They teach you that sort of thing in school."

"Watch your tone," Inuyasha warned. "Kikyou has a degree, do you?"

"You finished your degree?" Kaede gasped. "That's awesome!"

"Back to the topic at hand," Sesshoumaru interrupted what he knew would be a rather long-winded off-topic discussion. "We must decide how to handle the difficult situation presented to us."

"Keh, Kikyou and I'll handle this. Old man wouldn't be here if it weren't about me," Inuyasha gruffly informed the group. "We'll do our best to get rid of the whole crowd, but it might be best if we scrap tonight and try again some other time. Without participation of certain blabbermouths."

"Hey! It's not like I had a reason to think you didn't want your own parents to know about a family dinner," Hiromi protested.

"If you are sure," Sesshoumaru said carefully, ignoring Hiromi's outburst. "This Sesshoumaru could go, if-"

"Naw, we can do this," Inuyasha assured his brother. "They've got to learn that I'm my own person sometime."

"This Sesshoumaru will wait here," he informed the two. He couldn't leave without them, he was their ride, but he didn't have to stay and play witness. Besides, he was alpha. If the hanyou desired to face this with only his mate, he would allow it, but it behooved him to stay close in case things got out of hand. "Perhaps the others will quietly seek out a private exit from the situation?"

"I'm staying," Kaede insisted firmly. "I want to talk with Kikyou-nee-san and have a good meal."

"Kaede," Osamu started sternly. "You will adhere to the decision of your parents."

"Or what? You're going to disown my like you did Kikyou?" Kaede scoffed. "Kikyou's family will see me home if you and mom don't want to stay, but I'm sticking around. She's my sister and I support her even if you don't!"

"Kaede! Don't speak to your father that way!" Miwa sounded scandalized by her youngest daughter's radical behavior. Kaede just rolled her eyes and walked over to plaster her nose to a clear space in the glass to watch the scene playing out beyond it.

Sesshoumaru wandered over, vigilant as to any direction this confrontation might take. There was little doubt the whole of it would be documented in pictures and reported in tabloids and even respectable papers come morning. The Taishou alpha and his mate were about to have a very public fight with their youngest son. Such was the stuff that made careers.

Inuyasha didn't pull any punches or play with tact. "What are you doing here, old man?"

"We are here to prevent this travesty from playing out any further," Hiroyuki growled with menace. "We will sever you from this mercenary, grasping, whore and set you straight as to what you deserve. She is unworthy of you. If you don't like the female we've chosen, we will find you a better one."

"You need to come home, baby," Izayoi broke in gently. "Stop playing house with these-people and return to the world you were born for."

"You seem to forget I'm mated to this woman," Inuyasha growled low. "I marked her and it took."

Hiroyuki shook his head, "You are only a hanyou, it isn't as deep or binding as a full youkai."

"So you really are a bigot," Inuyasha snarled. "My half youkai heritage makes me less than you. Really, less than youkai because my mother was human."

"So it is true, Sesshoumaru has poisoned you against us," Hiroyuki growled. "I will punish him for this."

"Sesshoumaru was reluctant to talk about you at all," Kikyou inserted pointedly. "I got the distinct impression the topic of his parents was painful. Imparting your treatment of him to his brother doubly so, because you took a bit more care of Inuyasha as a child than Sesshoumaru."

"Stay out of this, bitch," Hiroyuki spat.

"Watch how you talk to my mate, bastard," Inuyasha growled. "My opinion of you was created by your own behavior. Your snobbery, lying, and selfishness. And now bigotry. How dare you tell me that my mark on my mate isn't as valid as it would be if you'd fucked Sesshoumaru's mother to have me instead of your mate! Especially after you told me Sesshoumaru shouldn't inherit because he wasn't born of _my_ mother!"

"You actually said that?" Kikyou gasped. "What an ass!"

"Watch your tongue you interloper!" Izayoi defended her mate.

"You Still defend him after this?" Inuyasha scoffed. "You're a hypocritical bigot, just like he is! I suppose you think my claim is just as flimsy as he does _because_ of the blood you gave me, huh? And you wonder why I want nothing to do with you, why neither of you were invited to a family dinner, or why I refused to take calls from the both of you. Why don't you go back to your little la-la land where there are only consequences to other people's actions and leave the rest of us to live in reality!" The hanyou turned to glare at the closest reported, "Did you get all that or should I repeat it, you bunch of nosy assholes! Stay out of my life and that of my mate's. We aren't part of the Taishou pack publicity tour. Anybody who thinks otherwise should know we're living with Taishou Sesshoumaru and our privacy will be as diligently guarded as his is," he finished with a threat and a final snarl at his parents before returning to the restaurant, Kikyou smirking blithely on his arm.

The photographers and reporters scattered quickly, the story of Sesshoumaru's retribution for invading his privacy was still vivid in the minds of the paparazzi and all other news affiliated individuals. It left Hiroyuki and Izayoi fuming in the cool evening air in front of the establishment.

Sesshoumaru welcomed them back in with an approving expression and Kaede got to hug her sister while everybody else stood stunned behind them. There was probably no better way to demonstrate to the Yoshidas that Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru were not extensions of their father.


	45. Live Another Day

Well, much as we all want to see what the Taishou's going to do next...It's Kagome's turn! Granted, there's no real family drama, she's very into her work and that creates drama on its own. Enjoy!

Calendar: January

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Live Another Day**

Kagome was too exhausted to think as she stared out the window of her office onto the open emptiness of the undeveloped property that surrounded the Institute. It had been a rough couple days for Teddy. Some idiot had broken protocol and brought in a seemingly harmless bug from their family at home. Teddy had caught it and his delicate balance had been thrown violently off.

Any disease, virus or bacterial infection that caused a fever was exceedingly harmful to Teddy as his temperature fluctuations between human and youkai halves were already a problem. He'd started showing signs of a fever and then abruptly started the seizures that were so dangerous to his health. Keeping his youki suppressed too long made the release increasingly likely to set off seizures when his temperature fell, at the very least they risked shock. Leaving his youki free too long risked more when his temperature rose higher when his body naturally suppressed it periodically.

As if the fever wasn't bad enough, Teddy had developed a hacking cough which inflamed his upper respiratory system so badly swallowing had become painful. His body was struggling to sufficiently oxygenate his blood leaving his extremities to take on a bluish hue. Cleo had stuck by his side through all of it and Teddy had survived because of her more than anyone else. The beads around his wrist could only be installed and then removed by her. She held him and rocked him when he cried out in pain and anxiety.

Hell, she'd even caught his cold and been required to wear a mask to prevent re-exposing the little half turtle to the bug that was killing him.

They finally got him stable, but he wasn't out of the woods yet. The infection had been treated and they had a handle on it, but it couldn't immediately be cured. Teddy would have to heal from it the old fashioned way. They had tempered the symptoms and filled him with fluids and bug appropriate medications, extended the period of his youki suppression as much as they dared, and blocked any unnecessary personnel from entering his room until he got over it and passed the contagious stage.

Rin had been decidedly unhappy to find herself barred from entering and playing with her friend, but Kagome couldn't let her in. Teddy was still susceptible to youkai maladies. While Rin herself was healthy, she was also capable of carrying something. With Teddy already fighting one bug he was even more vulnerable to any possible new disease piggy backing in on someone else.

Keeping their resident half turtle on the mend was worrisome enough, but Teddy wasn't Kagome's only concern. Lacey had managed to go home healthy and happy, but her room had been filled with another hanyou that wasn't likely to be so lucky. That patient had arrived today and the prognosis didn't look good.

Persius Alfero had traveled all the way from Italy against Kagome's recommendations. She couldn't travel to him, Teddy's health was too unstable to risk leaving and she was in the midst of consulting with several other doctors in multiple countries. She'd offered to consult with the leading physician for Percy since _his_ health couldn't handle being moved. It was the most effective way for her to head up medical teams everywhere hanyou were being treated. Doctors called on her and she gave suggestions and advice. Many hanyou couldn't be moved because of their location or money constraints. More halfers couldn't make their way to her because of health risks involved with long distance travel.

Health was the reason Miriam-sensei's three grandchildren remained in Canada. The physical fragility of two made staying in one place the safest option. Kagome was consulted and contacted for every new hiccup and after every checkup, and her popularity just seemed to grow in that direction. Right now, she had ten different cases she was consulting on long distance. Percy would have been number eleven, but his case had a definite fix and a happy end in sight.

Percy's parents refused her advice and moved him anyway. The seven year old had arrived in a coma and Kagome didn't expect him to wake up again. Kagome would be surprised if the poor kid managed to live until dawn. His parents had blasted her when they were informed of what their reckless actions had done. They refused to believe she was right in both instances that she had advised them...and yet, they had still risked it all to bring him to her half way around the world.

Hakkaku had forced Kagome out of the room after watching over the half Lynx for twelve hours straight. Kagome hadn't wanted to leave the poor thing alone. He didn't know her and the boy likely wouldn't know she'd ever been there, but she didn't want to leave him alone.

Kagome took a deep breath and rubbed a hand over her dry eyes. It was some comfort to know Rin was curled up beside him right now, keeping him warm and permeating his senses with the reality that someone with youki was right there next to him. The pup was very empathic.

Kagome had just come from checking on Teddy and June. June was their first pregnancy. June was human, but she liked the night life and youkai lovers. There was no known father in the picture so the breed of her youkai partner was up in the air. Once June's father found out she was pregnant he'd insisted she come to Kagome. The institute was equipped to handle pregnancy and delivery. Kagome had insisted on it. The earlier they started working to help a hanyou the better the chances of being successful. Besides which, June needed more support than she was going to get at a regular hospital.

Kagome had contacted the hospital she'd studied at and asked for either a mid-wife consultant or an obstetrician. June's father had hired her a birthing coach as well. The man was determined to support his daughter's choice to continue the pregnancy by helping her have the healthiest experience possible. The man was a senator and wanted June admitted for practically the duration of her gestational term. Kagome and Dr. Peterson, OB/GYN from San Francisco, had managed to talk him down to the last trimester. June had been admitted this morning and was settling in fine. Dr. Peterson had left shortly before Percy arrived.

Three patients were the sum total of occupancy. The Hospital in San Francisco admitted and discharged hundreds of patients in a day and they were strapped to keep up with three.

A dry laugh escaped her. Three patients had pushed her to this exhaustion. How was she supposed to handle a full clinic? There were six rooms still available for patients.

She was being unreasonable. Teddy's situation wasn't always this uneasy. Not every patient was moved against her advice and June's pregnancy was mostly under Dr. Peterson's purview. Today was atypical. It was unlikely that all these things would happen so close together in the future. Besides, there would be more personnel trained to handle the things she was doing next time this had the chance to happen or the patient numbers built higher than three.

The office opened behind her and Kagome turned to see who was encroaching on her personal office in the small hours of the morning. Kagome hadn't been home in days so all the staff knew that once the door was closed, she was out of commission for anything less than life or death.

Ginta was standing just inside the closed door gazing at her with solemn eyes and a touch of worry.

"Percy?" Kagome breathed out sadly, fearing his expression meant the poor boy had succumbed to his parents' arrogance and stupidity. She'd wanted to hit them with everything she could when the boy had arrived in the ambulance they'd commissioned to convey him from the airport their private jet had landed at. Bringing the patient to the specialist wasn't always the best thing for every patient. In Percy's case it would have been better to avoid the pressure changes caused by quick change in altitude and the jarring typical of any kind of transit.

Even if he did survive, the fever breaking and the fluid build up easing, Percy had very likely suffered serious damage to his hearing. He'd been suffering severe sinus drainage which had lead to a double ear infection and the build up of fluid in his ears. His doctor had worried for the fever and the prolonged duration of the symptoms. An ear infection and such severe drainage was typically quickly got over for his other patients, but Percy wasn't like his other patients.

Kagome had recommended cultures of the ear infection and suppression of the his youki so that the medical staff could treat it like they would other humans. The Lynx was a warm-blooded youkai like humans. They wouldn't have to worry about temperature fluctuations like with Theodore's situation. The condition wasn't caused by something inherent in his youkai nature. This was simple mucus buildup and drainage which caused a corresponding ear infection. It was a common problem for young children and swimmers. It wasn't unheard of for children older than that to suffer it too.

The Alferos were self-absorbed, entitled, wealthy asses whose judgment was obviously better than Kagome's, regardless of the fact that they brought him here because she was the specialist, the expert. The minute the family arrived she wanted to bar Percy's parents from the building for their gross stupidity and the hazard it had proven to be where their child's health was concerned.

She'd managed to swallow it down in lieu of focusing on stabilizing the small boy breathing shallow and fast under the fever that was burning him up. Kagome had belted out orders and directed the EMTs towards the correct room. A light dose of the herbal remedy to quickly suppress his youki followed by a dip in a luke warm bath were the first actions taken. She'd had to work up his vitals and make quick decisions over what to treat his pain, his fever and the infection with while tracking his pulse rate and checking his reflexes. Kagome had even gotten wet as she helped the nurse put in an IV drip while he was still in the tub.

Kagome hadn't said a damn word to the panicking parents. She was too angry. Connor had been kind enough to do the honors which hadn't kept them from blaming Kagome for not fixing their little boy and giving him a better prognosis. They threatened to sue. Kagome called up Ramirez-sensei and Barley-san to let them know once she made it to her office. She explained the facts in a voice rendered numb after hours of struggling to stabilize the boy dropped in their laps.

They'd had no warning Percy was coming and no reason to assume her advice would be ignored. Percy's doctor in Europe hadn't given them a heads up. No ambulance had called ahead to them once they'd picked him up. There was a lot of things that hadn't happened and they needed to know why so this situation never came up again.

"He's still breathing, last I checked," Ginta replied though his expression didn't changed. "You missed your appointment today."

Kagome stared at him blankly. It seemed to take twenty minutes for the cogs to start turning properly in her head. Eventually she figured out what the wolf was talking about. "Damn!" Kagome cursed as she realized she'd missed her therapy appointment today and hadn't called to reschedule it. She didn't try to make excuses as she was done trying to rationalize why she avoided things. "And Dr. Nayana is leaving on vacation next week, even if I called and begged I couldn't get in before she leaves."

"It's all right Kagome-nee-san," Ginta approached her where she sat slumped against the edge of her desk. He sat on the edge next to her and wrapped his arm around her carefully. "Connor called me and I made the necessary arrangements. Dr. Nayana is willing to conduct a telephone session with you tomorrow morning."

Kagome's head came up swiftly to stare at the little who was more family than her own brother. "How did- Why would -"

"Because it's helping you," Ginta answered the shocked questions she couldn't get out. "I don't know what bad thing you've been working against, but I know you've been grappling with it for longer than I've known you. I didn't know at first," he admitted. "I was just so happy you stuck around in spite of Kouga that I couldn't see beyond your troubles with him, but slowly Hakkaku and I began to notice things. Hakkaku was the one who managed to figure it out first. You did things we didn't understand, subtle things with your body language that screamed out not to be touched. I think we both thought it was a culture difference, brief study of Japanese culture pointed out the general avoidance of casual touching. It was strange to us because we're wolves, we sleep in piles for most of our lives. Touching is a proof of well-being."

"Japan is different," Kagome pointed out.

"But not that different," Ginta shook his head. "There are basic human needs and touch is one of them. Japanese culture allows for touching between family members and close friends, even roommates and you tensed up even around Brett. It would have been normal if you eventually stopped being nervous by his spontaneous hugs, but you didn't. It was always there."

Kagome didn't try to refute his observations. She had learned through her sessions that she had been deceiving herself for a long time, convinced she had everything under control. She'd developed stress habits she hadn't even noticed, her life had narrowed down to situations where touch wasn't encouraged. It was a reality that would have only lead to greater trouble down the line as she struggled with the desperate need for the feel of skin on skin. Humans were meant to touch and be touched, there were whole therapies based on just this premis.

"We didn't completely make the connection until another Canadian pack sent us a female to foster. It was a last minute transfer due to some abhorrent trouble the pack had developed with the local town. They'd fostered out every child old enough to _be_ fostered just to get them away from the situation. The one we got had been directly involved. We don't know what specifically happened to her, but she refused to sleep with any member of the pack. She didn't handle touch well and when she tolerated it, she'd tense up like you," Ginta finished. "We wanted to track down who ever did that to you and hurt them when we figured it out and we worked hard to help our little foster sister in our way. Hakkaku did a lot of research and we convinced the elders she needed some sort of therapy to get over the trauma. The pack wasn't equipped to provide it inside so I talked to some of your professor for direction that summer we came to visit." He squeezed her a little when she tensed in surprise. "I wasn't just asking what would be the best path to follow in your footsteps."

"I suppose not," Kagome muttered with a sigh. "I'm sorry for your pack sister, whatever happened to her"

"We still don't know," Ginta responded. "I'm fairly sure we don't want to know, but we'll listen when she's ready to talk."

"You are a good pack mate," Kagome praised him and the wolf ducked bashfully as she knew he would. Girls could flirt with him and he was cool as a cucumber. Peers could tease him and Ginta was a rock. But if Kagome told him he was good at something related to being a part of his pack, his face flamed up and he got really shy. Hakkaku was practically the opposite. He didn't handle flirting or teasing well, but he took positive comments on his behavior within any family or pack situation in stride. She relented and changed the subject for him. "I really wish you would stay in Carter-sensei's guest house like I did. Driving all the way out here after your classes cuts too much into your sleep."

Ginta smiled at her before stepping away. "I'm demon. Sleep is not quite the time-consuming need that it is for humans."

She rolled her eyes before attempting to shoo him from her office with little success. It was an old argument, one that both Ginta and Hakkaku handled quite adeptly. They would not leave her alone anymore than Rin would. Both would prefer if she'd go home every night instead of sleeping in her office, but like them, she had her arguments worked out for every single attempt at persuading her to leave.

"I really wish you would go home of a night," Ginta sighed as he pulled out her stored futon to lay out on the floor. He was going to insist she try to sleep and she would succumb in ways that had never worked in her youth. Running this clinic and raising her pup wore her out enough that all-nighters were almost impossible for her.

"I'm on call," Kagome shook her head in the prescribed motions this conversation always inspired. In another age and time, repeating this conversation so many times might have greatly annoyed her. Now, it was just a sort of comforting everyday interaction. "Percy's condition isn't really stable and it wouldn't take much for Teddy to relapse dangerously. The house is too far away for either case. I don't run like a youkai, human that I am."

"You're perfect as a human," Ginta insisted even as he helped her remove her lab coat and shoes before ushering her into the soft confines of the makeshift bed. "At least you won't die as fast as a regular human."

Kagome had told her wolves about Sesshoumaru. They didn't know who he was, but they had both seen his mark and knew that it and the youkai that put it there was part of the problems she was dealing with now. Dr. Nayana had suggested transparency with them would be a relief for her, and it was. She didn't have to be so careful of what she wore around them. It also allowed them to be transparent with her. Rin had already told them all about her papa and Kagome's mark. They hadn't known that her mate had trapped her without consent and they still didn't know his name.

There were just some things Kagome wasn't ready to let go of. Rin probably knew some form of his name, but never used it as such. He was always papa or papa-Sesshoumaru to her and Kagome had found that unless people who didn't speak the language were told specifically that something _was _a name, they just assumed it was some vocabulary word they hadn't learned. Sesshoumaru's name may appear in text around the world, but it was a rare day when someone pronounced it correctly. Usually in gossip shows they just called him the Taishou heir.

Kagome smiled as Ginta tucked her in before seeing himself out. Normally, one or both wolves would lay down beside her atop the covers to keep her company until she fell asleep. Tonight, Ginta was going to monitor Teddy for her while Hakkaku watched over Percy. Neither would actually do anything besides observe and call for her the minute something turned sour, but it made her easier to know they were watching.

When she was certain Ginta wasn't coming back, she sat up and reached for the pocket of her doctor's coat for her cell. Sesshoumaru would just be getting ready for bed, if she caught him, maybe they could share a dream. The demands on her time had interfered with their extracurricular activities in recent months, so Kagome made sure any opportunity was used to the fullest whether it was a spontaneous moment like this or a break planned in advance. Her therapist was aware of the nuances of their relationship, it was permanent and no escape from it could be had. She approved of how Kagome had handled it over time, leaving the lines of communication open, and never allowing him to push her into things she wasn't ready for.

Kagome could have hidden her head in the sand and pretended that temporary escape could last eternally which would have made their eventual reunion even worse. The world simply _wasn't_ that big. She'd have to keep track of exactly where Sesshoumaru was to keep far enough away from him to maintain complete separation. Doing so while blithely pretending there was no such person or any reason for doing so would have been impossible.

Kagome and Sesshoumaru would meet, but at least now Kagome knew he wasn't the epitome of all that was evil. Every creature that lived on the planet existed in layers of moral ambiguity. Their code of ethics could only be learned through experience and evolving understanding. By comparison, Kagome hated Hiroyuki more than the son who personally wronged her. He was the reason Sesshoumaru resorted to the methods he had. His actions (or rather, lack of actions) impelled Sesshoumaru to act without full understanding of the consequences beyond escaping the mistreatment of his negligent alpha.

Her therapist may not have completely approved of Kagome demonizing her mate's alpha, but Kagome had been very careful to leave out Sesshoumaru's intent to escape the pack he'd been born to. The less people who knew about that ahead of time the less likely their alpha would.

Kagome trusted her therapist, but patient doctor confidentiality had its ambiguous spaces. Any talk about Kagome's personal feelings and whatever treatment was prescribed was absolutely covered. Other things could be rationalized. Besides which, it was Sesshoumaru's secret more than hers and it didn't hurt her to keep it.

Kagome hit the send button and laid back down into the welcoming softness of various blankets and pillows. Some nights, Rin would curl up in her puppy form beside her. Other nights both wolves would join them and then some nights Kagome would have the space to herself while Rin slept in one of the various open rooms or in a chair beside Teddy when they had their play sleep overs. Cleo told rather good stories that Rin had never heard and the two children would stay up giggling afterward, discussing the sorts of nuances kids that age would catch. Whenever a new patient came in Rin stayed with them the first night, whether she returned again after that was dependent on the child housed in the room and various parent reactions.

"Mate," Sesshoumaru answered her call before it finished the first ring. "You're calling later than usual tonight."

"The half lynx from Europe was transferred against advice and arrived today," Kagome explained, the petulance on the topic was missing from her tone due to fatigue, but she was certain he knew how she felt when she had the energy. "He had fallen into a coma in addition to developing a higher fever than his doctor ever reported to me."

"Will he live?" came the question that was so pertinent and terrible at the same time. The fact that Kagome put off answering was response enough. "I am sorry mate. I hope he is more resilient than his health might suggest at this moment."

"If he is, he likely will never hear again. Not like he did before," she sighed. It was so hard to know the right way to handle a situation and still be ignored because it wasn't yet an official treatment suggestion. Kagome's methods and treatments were still too new and esoteric to have been substantiated by the typical means yet. She was only lucky that all of her treatments used methods already approved for other therapies. The only thing she was doing differently was adding the youki suppression aspect to it. Once that happened, most of her patients could be treated as straight human ailments with human remedies. None of her hanyou had arrived with a youkai specific malady yet, for which she was exceedingly grateful. She hadn't been successful in finding a way to either suppress their human characteristics or heighten their youki to combat such a thing.

Kagome shook her head against the fluff of her pillow and changed the subject. "How are the wedding plans coming?"

Inuyasha and Kikyou had been mated for over a year already, but her family had only just given their blessing on the union with the condition the two married in a human ceremony. Things had gone crazy since then. Inuyasha wanted them to be married yesterday, Kikyou wanted a small private ceremony that could have been planned in a couple months. Both plans would have seen the event done and over with by now had bride and groom been allowed either.

Then Taishou Hiroyuki and Izayoi had made a public declaration that the human family was trying to further solidify their claims to Inuyasha's inheritance. If they _really_ cared about the young couple they would show it, else a mere filling out of paperwork would suffice for them.

The Yoshida family demanded a shrine wedding and extravagant reception that was clearly meant to dispel the gossip that they cared a whit about the Taishou alpha's opinion on the nuptials. They obviously intended to make a statement about wealth and taste of their own family, proving they had no need or want of Taishou money.

Inuyasha and Kikyou had been annoyed with the whole thing from the minute it had been suggested. Inuyasha had broken his silence towards his parents for the sole purpose of ripping the alpha a new asshole and apparently sending his mother into therapy that included designer drugs and an excess of alcohol. Kagome personally assumed the reports were exaggerated and Izayoi probably just admitted herself into a long term spa facility. There were also rumors that the Taishou alpha female had gained mysterious weight about her middle, but that happened about every six to ten months.

"Latest suggestions have the hanyou carried to the altar by a white, sacrificial goat that will later serve as dinner," Sesshoumaru had taken it upon himself to suggest absolutely ridiculous ideas to Inuyasha and Kikyou to alternately rile his brother up and make the pair laugh at the absurdity. In the background, Sesshoumaru had been working with Higurashi Kie and her father-in-law to plan a private, impromptu ceremony on the shrine grounds in the next few weeks. Not even Inuyasha and Kikyou knew what was going on. The pair were just going to show up for another family dinner at the Higurashi shrine and find themselves presented with the traditional regalia. Only family members who showed up would get to witness it. They could have their outrageous reception at a later date. The ceremony was for the wedding couple, not the witnesses.

Kagome laughed, "Have you been researching foreign wedding ceremonies for this? Because I'm pretty sure there's a religion that does have a white donkey bring the groom to the altar. And the Greek most likely do serve goat at the dinner afterward."

"It certainly keeps her family from calling me a complete fool or believing I'm truly against their efforts," Sesshoumaru replied. "Even if I am, the last thing I need is to fall in the evil character category currently filled by father alone."

"True," Kagome was starting to develop an ache in her cheeks from the smile stretching her lips.

"Are you going to sleep, mate?" he asked gently, without a hint of the eagerness she expected.

"Yeah, my babysitters have decided I need to attempt sleep with three patients in the house," Kagome sighed.

"Three?"

"Yeah, the little mother checked in for her third trimester," she answered. "At present she's the only patient I'm not worried about."

"Teddy still not doing well?" Sesshoumaru followed Teddy's progress closely because it was important to her. She appreciated it more than even her therapist could suspect.

"He's better," came the careful words that had been practiced all day for any inquiry. "Not out of the woods yet and the employee responsible has been sent back to San Francisco for a refresher in sterile healthcare practices. The Jerk knew a family member at home was coming down with a cold, he should have been wearing a mask and scrubbing down _every _time he had to enter Teddy's room." Kagome was still angry about that. The policies were very explicit about what was expected around patients. The hanyou here were more fragile than anywhere else. "I need to find some way to protect Teddy from this in the future though. Ji-chan suggested I try altering the beads or sutras from suppressing youki to cleansing the air of germs, something that Teddy can wear all the time to guard against air borne disease. I don't want to put him in a plastic bubble if I don't have to. Right now it doesn't bother him when he's confined to his room, but someday soon that's going to change and I'd rather not punish his natural inclination to explore the rest of the Institute or terrify him from making friends his own age. The goal is to let him leave someday."

"One step at a time, mate," Sesshoumaru rumbled soothingly. "First step, sleep, which I will not be able to join you in. This latest shrine I'm working with is in worse shape than the last one and in greater danger of closing. Time is unfortunately short if I can't turn it quickly around."

"Which means a little less sleep now so that others can sleep better later," Kagome nodded in the dark even as her eyes began to droop with the combination of exhaustion and his efforts to put her out. "You're better than drugs, you know that?"

"Hn," came the amused response before her world turned off and sleep claimed her.

Her smile followed her into dreaming, which was just as restful regardless of whether Sesshoumaru got to join her or not.


	46. Enemy at the Gate

Sorry for the delay, FFN wouldn't let me into my account for most of the day. The sadness! But I'm in now so here you go!

guess what? We're back to more of the Taishou family drama. Hiroyuki doesn't know how to admit defeat, it's not in his make up...oh, but he'll learn! Enjoy the chapter.

Calendar: March

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Enemy At the Gate**

Sesshoumaru looked up from the delicate work he was doing with the beaded necklace he was working on. White day was approaching and he needed gifts for both his mate and pup. They would already arrive late, but both females had offered him forgiveness before he could apply for it. He always felt bad when he missed the deadline because his mate never did. So he was trying to focus on his projects without interruption.

He refused to allow himself leniency for the difference in style between their gifts. Hers were almost always edible for the smaller holidays, like Valentines. Big holidays were typically more expensive and long lasting, but also not as intricately handmade as his were. Rin got to assist with the various unusual cookies and cakes and the occasional handicraft, and he loved that about them. Even the big Holiday gifts generally included something Rin had helped to make beside the expensive gift his mate had chosen for him.

There was so much care shown in her efforts to gift him anything. This year's valentines gift had included a set of homemade dog tags. The long basic chain held two laminated paper tags. One held the Kanji for Katarin's name on one side and a clipping of her fur under the melted plastic on the other. The second held the kanji for lover and mate on the text side while the flip side was decorated with a paper crane marked by his stylized symbol and colors. He wore them constantly, tucked under his shirt, over his heart.

When he first received them, Sesshoumaru had extracted a promise from his mate. He'd demanded a replacement with her name, her real name be made after they met back up. She'd laughingly promised to have it ready made for him at the house. She'd even sent him pictures of the box she kept it in next to the door.

It wasn't just him that had been gifted things from his mate recently. Kikyou had received a wedding present from his mate that Sesshoumaru had been proud of. The hanyou's female had received her own key to the house they had built. The chain that hung from it included three charms: a paper crane identical to the ones Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru had, a laminated paw print added by Rin, and a stylized flower that marked all of Sesshoumaru's new pack now. The flower was something he'd designed in childhood at the impetus of his grandfather. In older days all youkai males of the core line had their own symbol to mark personal pack.

Sesshoumaru smirked. Inuyasha wasn't aware of that fact because most of the Taishou pack wore the alpha's symbols and colors. Only the alpha and heir developed their own marks for the pack in recent years. Inuyasha wasn't an heir and was never in a position to be so. Their grandfather had known that and never informed his second grandson of the custom. Hiroyuki could have, if he'd ever bothered to think of anything so mundane. The Taishou alpha had likely believed all such tasks were being handled by his stand in.

It was probably the reason Hiroyuki had kept his father around instead of killing him. Most inu packs lost their old alpha after such a challenge was won. Instinct and aroused aggression drove the victorious challenger to it.

Sesshoumaru didn't know why his father didn't kill his grandfather. The challenge occurred before his birth and was not documented in any newspapers or scandal rags he could find. It could be because the change over was conducted in a clandestine fashion or it could be due to the fight taking place before the advent of such a plague on the wealthy. He had no idea when his grandfather had lost his alpha rank to Hiroyuki, just that it hadn't been a recent event.

The inu returned his devout attention to the collection of beads on the low table. He was working in the main space of the condo because it offered the best artificial light to be had. Sesshoumaru's attempts to achieve some progress on the project in his own room had proved to produce only increased frustration as he lost various pieces in the fibers of the carpet. Besides which, his new work bench was covered in the pre-cut metal of his future crane pins.

Sesshoumaru had felt so bad at his tardiness in producing a crane for Theodore that he'd splurged his first restored stipend cheque on enough metal to produce a hundred such pins. He had to cut them elsewhere, but all finishing work could safely be conducted in his room over his workbench. He was determined to never miss a hanyou admission to his mate's care again. Their lives were often so short or their stay so quickly ended, that it was only pure luck, and his mate's intense determination to keep Teddy alive, that allowed Sesshoumaru to supply the half turtle a pin at all.

Lacey had barely received hers before being discharged into the care of her family. If his finances hadn't resumed their healthy state, Sesshoumaru would have missed her entirely. He didn't know if he could live with himself if that ever happened. It had been hard enough to live with the guilt of simply being late. He wasn't just supporting his mate, he was including every hanyou child that found their way into her care in a vast network of other hanyou who knew their suffering and their protectors from sickness and death.

All of the Sanctuary Families handed paper cranes out to the hanyou they met and aided. Sesshoumaru had wanted to replace the paper with his metallic rendition, but doing so would give the secret away. His mate's brother and mother had both seen the ones his mate gave to her patients. Her mother knew they came from the male that marked the daughter. If Sesshoumaru suddenly started handing them out, conclusions would be made, the jig would be up. His precious mate's family would end the charade by attacking him and divulging her identity in the same move.

Sesshoumaru did want to know who she was. He was just learning there were good ways to go about it and bad ways. Having her family attack him was probably the worst way he could think of. The best was to have her divulge her name with an invitation into her life.

Sesshoumaru smiled to himself as he threaded beads onto the special lining he'd used for this particular gift. Beading was not a craft he was particularly enamored of. He preferred making jewelry out of metal he had worked and finished with his personal toxins, but that required tools and space he didn't have.

Kikyou had suggested beading, as it was a hobby her sister had enjoyed. Sesshoumaru agreed to make the attempt. His mate teased him about giving the "old college try". Her tone had been light. Now he thought she might have known just how much he would hate it.

It took a full week to master the art of picking up a single bead between his claws without it zinging across the room to ping against some piece of furniture, a picture frame, or a lamp before getting lost somewhere in the wide expanse of carpet covered floor. Sesshoumaru was fairly certain he only ever recovered about half the little beads. Stepping on one of the damn things was certainly the worst way to find one. This labor of love would definitely _not_ be repeated.

It didn't help that Sesshoumaru refused to start out his beading foray with a simplistic design. Rather his chosen design involved building his flora mark out of beads before finishing off with the long strands that would allow the beaded nightmare to hang about her delicate neck. It required careful counting of tiny beads, stringing them together in precise order and knotting them to each mini-strand as he created the petals and the hexagon that housed them. He'd found errors in his work that had to be carefully undone so many times he found himself empathizing with Kikyou's crocheting projects and the quiet cursing that always accompanied her bad days.

His mate had suggested he give up on the project and just purchase something. Sesshoumaru refused to do so. He couldn't start a new project, he'd committed too much to this one to finish before their anniversary next month. Buying something may have been easier, but he always made something unique and romantic. Knowing his difficulty, he was certain that his females would definitely treasure his gifts.

Kikyou was puttering around in the kitchen. Inuyasha had an evening class this night of the week and she usually tried to have something ready to eat by the time her hanyou got home. She hadn't started cooking yet, but he was fairly certain she was assessing what she had available to cook. If there was something in particular she was looking to prepare, the woman would run out to purchase it if she found some component missing. She often did so.

It made him smile the way his pack mates interacted. Inuyasha wasn't nearly as loud anymore and Kikyou had found her happy place with her family. The pair had a weekly dinner with her parents now. Occasionally Sesshoumaru was invited, though he rarely went. Kaede had developed a rather uncomfortable crush on the elder inu brother and no hints at his being committed elsewhere had dissuaded her. It was better to avoid any contact at all. Kikyou had appreciated his discretion without needing it explained. She loved her sister, but she was well aware of the faults that tended to open up in this trying age of discovery that Kaede was wandering through.

The feelings were new and seemed more intense for the lack of context accumulated with years of experience in feeling similar things. It didn't mean Kaede's infatuation wasn't real, just that her dedication and stubbornness were misplaced. Loyalty to a feeling shouldn't be engaged until the worthiness and the availability of the object were positively established. It was foolish to nurture an attraction to someone that couldn't be had. But youth was synonymous with foolishness, if only because of the lack of greater experience. Not that Sesshoumaru's range of experience was all that much greater than a young teenage girl.

Kikyou assured him that heartbreak at this age was a minor injury. So long as he didn't encourage her, Kaede would not come to any prolonged harm from the rejection. He could think of no other possibility for rebuffing the emotional overtures of a young female trapped in the very personal insanity that was a "crush". Reason hadn't worked, carefully pointed avoidance was all he had left.

A rather annoying buzzing sounded from the intercom by the door. Sesshoumaru glared at it before moving to delicately drop the ends of his project. If he set it down without due care, the last run of beads would slide off the untied end, undoing a great deal of his latest efforts to complete the thing. His delay allowed Kikyou to beat him to the buzzing call.

"Taishou Residence," Kikyou sent back.

"This is the front desk," the attendant down stairs returned. "We apologize for the inconvenience, but we were unable to detain your visitor until your permission could be gained. A Taishou Hiroyuki has forced his way into the elevator and will be reaching your floor momentarily."

"What is he doing here?" Kikyou murmured in Sesshoumaru's direction as he finally pushed away from the low table beside the couch. "He's never wanted anything to do with either of us before. Surely he knows Inuyasha is at University right now."

"Hn," Sesshoumaru concurred with her confusion. The Taishou alpha had never bothered to visit his apartment, not even when the heir first moved in after being banished from the estate. He hadn't visited when Inuyasha claimed to move in. Why would the elder male show up now?

Sesshoumaru turned back to his informal work space and tensed. He'd never worried about where he left his project in his home. Inuyasha and Kikyou didn't care, and he always packed his mess up from the common areas when he was finished for the day. Hiroyuki would assume things about Sesshoumaru's masculinity and work ethic from the evidence on the low table.

"I can pretend it's my doing," Kikyou rushed to suggest, but Sesshoumaru shook his head. If the alpha noticed the collection of beading supplies, he would also notice the scent that lingered on them. Besides, Kikyou was a lousy liar. Her scent wouldn't even have to give her away.

Sesshoumaru straightened his shoulders and braced up his emotions. This would be the first time he faced off against his alpha in his own territory. He would not be ashamed of anything contained in it. "It might be best for you to avoid the common areas," he suggested to his flatmate. "Stay either in the Kitchen or the room you share with your mate for the duration of his visit." He had no doubt the alpha would be in and promptly gone again.

Hiroyuki liked to strike fast and hard before stepping back to gloat at the annihilation his attack had wrought. There was no chance this visit wouldn't involve some form of abuse being heaped on Sesshoumaru. It was the only reason the elder inu would oust himself this far out of his strongest power base. Hiroyuki liked to confront his opposition on grounds of his own choosing. The only time he'd ever left off that practice was when it came to attempts to sway Inuyasha from his mate. That Inuyasha wasn't home meant it was Sesshoumaru's turn to go up against his sire's persuasions.

It was very probable blackmail of some sort would be attempted. Manipulation was guaranteed to be tried. Insults would be slung.

"You don't want me to support you?" Kikyou asked in surprise.

"It will be easier to protect you if he only has me to target," Sesshoumaru explained mildly. "My father has not often been forced to deal with obstructions in the way of his goals. You are considered minor in his mind because of your gender. That doesn't mean he won't take a swipe at you if you are conveniently within reach."

"Misogynist," Kikyou sniffed disdainfully.

"That he is," Sesshoumaru nodded carefully. "Be aware that this Sesshoumaru recognizes the threat you are, but would rather not enlighten the alpha of that fact unless completely necessary. As his perception of you currently stands, he feels safe ignoring you. You can live your life peacefully, sleeping easy at night with the knowledge that no attacks will be made against your family's economic base. If he views you as a threat, this will change."

"I don't like it," Kikyou informed him as she headed back into the kitchen.

"I am aware of your displeasure," Sesshoumaru nodded. "Please discuss it with your mate and see what Inuyasha tells you." Inuyasha would back him up, there was no doubt about it. There was no reason for Kikyou to engage their alpha in anything but a long distance relationship of mutual animosity. Any closer and she might be tempted to reveal herself as a miko and their alpha might allow this fact to overpower his snobbery. Besides, in Inuyasha's absence, any injury Kikyou managed to obtain would be returned on Sesshoumaru for failing to adequately protect his brother's mate. _That_ discussion had already been held.

Sesshoumaru reached for the door and undid the lock. He turned the handle and popped the wood open to rest against the jamb. With the soundproofing seal broken, he could hear the elevator working to lift the car. This time of day there was likely to be several passengers returning home from work. The alpha's impatience was likely to make Hiroyuki even more belligerent than pushing passed the building attendants on the ground floor already implied.

This was not going to be a pleasant conversation by any stretch of the imagination. Just his mere presence in Sesshoumaru's home was going to be stress inducing for however long it takes to air it out. Kikyou wouldn't notice, but Inuyasha would. The scent engendered too many bad memories and experiences. It was an inu thing.

Sesshoumaru moved away from the door. There was no point in standing in anticipation of some violent threat. Dealing with Taishou Hiroyuki required tact. Inuyasha may have been entering his final year, but he wasn't graduated yet. Kikyou and Sesshoumaru couldn't support the rent and tuition for the hanyou. His mate couldn't support them all and Inuyasha's tuition. They couldn't afford severance just yet. But neither could they give any ground on the subject of Inuyasha's mating and subsequent marriage to Kikyou. Inuyasha and his love would not move into the clan estate.

Hiroyuki needed to stop fighting this battle. It was ended with no chance of dissolution or victory for his part. All his continued disapproval served to produce was increased distance from the son who was favorite. A caring man, a loving father, would know this. Children could not be controlled, adult children could not be held on a leash without the inevitable development of resentment and rebellion.

The quiet hiss of hydraulic doors announced the arrival on their floor. The scent that flooded insidiously from the tiny room outside the car through the cracks under and around the ajar door identified it as the Taishou Alpha. Sesshoumaru tensed as the elder inu flared his youki ahead of him as he pressed the door open without the politesse of knocking first.

"The doorman and your building attendants need a lesson about who's truly important," came the growl of petulance.

"They do the job as designated in the leasing agreement," Sesshoumaru responded mildly, settling on the plush couch without offering his unwanted guest refreshments typically required of a polite host. "You are not a resident, you are meant to be detained until the approbation could be received from the tenant you intend to visit. Such are the safety protocols instilled upon my taking up residence in this building as negotiated by the pack."

Sesshoumaru had found that the best method for arguing with his alpha without holding any actual arguments was to instead remind his alpha of both logic and his father's own part in manipulating the outcomes. Hiroyuki himself had been most assertive in having those very policies instituted for the protection of his banished heir. Despite the fact Sesshoumaru wasn't the favored son, and never had been gifted a particular amount of his father's affection, Hiroyuki well knew the repercussions within the pack if he didn't at least insure the safety of such a visible member of the pack.

"They do not apply to me as your alpha," Hiroyuki attempted to insist.

"You are not a resident, the policy indicates that anyone who is not a resident must sign in and be cleared by the party being encroached upon," Sesshoumaru added blandly.

"I am a lord!" Hiroyuki insisted.

"Indeed, so all other lords should not be subjected to this rule instated in order to protect your heir?" Sesshoumaru asked. It was increasingly noticeable how childish his father was on a daily basis. Perhaps all males were to some extent, but it was embarrassing that the alpha couldn't seem to outgrow it even periodically for the good of his many responsibilities before regressing to the mentality of a toddler.

"This is not what I came here to discuss," the elder inu dismissed the subject with a huff. Sesshoumaru left off making any kind of comment or change of expression. There was no need to point out the topic was raised by the one now dismissing it. The alpha would find a way around the logic to blame the son somehow. "It was brought to my attention that you facilitated the abomination of a marriage of Inuyasha to that low-class, mercenary, whore."

"This Sesshoumaru merely insured that Inuyasha's wishes were met with. The two have been fully mated and marked for over a year prior to the ceremony taking place," Sesshoumaru answered the accusation with a truth his father would never believe. "It was a private service, devoid of ostentation, family dissent, or the uncouth insertion of the press."

"It was also devoid of Izayoi and I," Hiroyuki pointed out with a growl.

"This Sesshoumaru intended to cover that with the lack of family dissent. You and the bride's family do not get along. You have been very vocal in your continued protests against Inuyasha's chosen and now mate and wife. They did not desire your presence at their nuptials," Sesshoumaru finished carefully.

"My son would never-"

"Inuyasha chooses to ignore all your attempts at contact beyond the occasional extortionist attempts to deny him his funds," Sesshoumaru knew this very well as the boy still insisted on the attendance of his elder brother at all encounters with their father. "He does not trust you. He is quite disgusted by your continued attempts to negate his marked claim on his mate based on his heritage as the only son of _your_ mate."

"He is half human so his mark is only half as potent-"

"There is no proof of that," Sesshoumaru cut in again very pointedly. "No studies have indicated that a hanyou would be any less fierce in his defense of a marked mate than any full youkai. It cannot be negated. It cannot be removed."

"This is your doing," Hiroyuki accused. "If you hadn't mated without proper approval he never would have thought to do it either."

"If that were the case, Inuyasha would not have waited so long to mark his chosen female. He would not have given you years to acclimate yourself to his choice," Sesshoumaru pointed out. "He would have ignored your disapproval of his chosen and rather than give you the opportunity to voice anything of the sort, presented her to you already marked and mated. Instead he waited years. Inuyasha waited until you proved so dishonorable as to fabricate evidence against his chosen for no other reason than your unsupported opinion of her based on her family's socioeconomic class."

"I want you to remove whatever hold you have over Inuyasha right now," Hiroyuki demanded, completely ignoring everything Sesshoumaru had just said. "Release him from your unreasonable control so that he can return to his regular habits and pursuits."

"Impossible," Sesshoumaru scoffed.

"It is not impossible! You will remove your manipulative claws from him. He will be moved back into the pack estate and that vile wench will no longer come near him!" the elder inu growled firmly, clearly expecting all of his demands to be met.

Sesshoumaru chuckled haltingly, "This Sesshoumaru cannot remove the hold on Inuyasha without removing the entirety of the blood we share, making him no longer your son and therefore freeing him from you and your demands of him. The hanyou may leave whenever he wishes, but it is incredibly unlikely that if he did leave this home that he would ever move back into close proximity of you and your mate. And he would never do so without the close attendance of his mate. You should not expect more of him than you do of yourself. You would not give up your mate, do not expect Inuyasha to give up his."

"She is unworthy!" Hiroyuki yelled.

"That is your opinion," Sesshoumaru acknowledged. "I am certain there were many in the pack and youkai society who felt the same about Izayoi when you marked her."

"She was a hime," Hiroyuki scoffed with a glare.

"She is human," Sesshoumaru pointed out. "Many still do not accept such relationships without comment among the upper ranks unless the human in question has power of their own. Izayoi has none that was not a gift of her family's influence, which no longer remains since their fall from power."

The alpha's eyes were turning red with his insulted anger. "You would do well to leave off such foolish commentary."

"Indeed," Sesshoumaru swallowed discreetly. "But you would also do well to remember precisely how you handled such apparent disapproval from society. You were lucky in that Grandfather supported your decision. If he hadn't, would you have given her up? Think on that."

"The two situations are not comparable. I am a full youkai-" Hiroyuki began in a low, threatening tone.

"And Inuyasha is your son," Sesshoumaru cut him off. That same hanyou chose this moment to return home from his evening class, a few minutes early.

"What's going on here?" Inuyasha demanded with an accusing look thrown at their father.

"This Sesshoumaru believes the alpha was hoping to convince this Sesshoumaru to remove my support from you," the elder son informed the younger carefully. "He was displeased when he received abject refusal based on the blood ties manufactured by sharing the same father."

"Keh," Inuyasha huffed. "Get out of here old man. You're not wanted. Kikyou is my mate and now my wife. There is no breaking that. Even if there was, I wouldn't do it no matter what you said."

"You are determined to ruin yourself," the overgrown puppy sighed, a clear fabricated effort to lull both sons into relaxing as if their alpha had finally accepted immutability of the situation. Sesshoumaru knew better, and Inuyasha was learning. The slightly reddened eyes of the thwarted alpha turned on Sesshoumaru abruptly. "And you are determined to let him, allowing him to marry that gold-digger without legal protections in the form of a pre-nuptial agreement."

Sesshoumaru scoffed.

"There was no need for one because there is no chance of divorce," Inuyasha growled.

"Therefore this Hiroyuki will teach you the error of your failings," the belligerent dog continued undeterred by Inuyasha's opinion.

"Watch it old man," Inuyasha scowled. "I stand with Sesshoumaru."

"You are hereby stripped of your position as heir to this Hiroyuki's position as alpha and CEO of the Taishou Enterprises," it was obvious the alpha was expecting some sort of protest over the disinheritance, but neither brother bothered.

"Hn," Was the only comment Sesshoumaru bothered to make before accepting the change. It wasn't as if he'd been really expecting to fulfill the position anyway.

"Are you done then?" Inuyasha demanded. "You've disinherited him. Congratulations, you've proven to be an even bigger disgruntled toddler than I'd already thought. Go home, your task is done now." Their lives very likely wouldn't change with this announcement. Sesshoumaru had never really had the proper training to be heir of the pack, and he'd never looked forward to the business aspect of the job. His stipend amount wouldn't change since it had never reflected his rank in the first place. If the Taishou alpha tried to withhold it again, Inuyasha would lay into their father so hard _in front_ of the pack this time, the alpha would take years to recover the same level of respect.

"Did you hear me?"

"We heard you, we just don't care. Get out!" Inuyasha scoffed.

"Oh indeed," Hiroyuki huffed, "So he can get back to his effeminate handicraft pursuits."

"Hn," Sesshoumaru had wondered when the elder inu was going to comment on the beading project left in plain sight.

"Wow man," Inuyasha growled. "Shows just how far behind you are. Jewelry making has been a pursuit followed by people of all genders. You know gemstones are typically set by males. What makes beading work so girly?"

Hiroyuki glared at his youngest before finally stalking out of the condo clearly unhappy with this day's work. Apparently, he'd expected a different reaction from the pair of males. Unfortunately, the father didn't know the proper buttons to push on either of his sons for the reaction he was looking for. They weren't business men with over grown egos that could be effected by being removed from various things they never wanted.


	47. Doctor Knows Best

Just a reminder, all anonymous/guest reviews are being deleted regardless of content. Back to Kagome, she's got some hard work to get through in this chapter.

Calendar: April

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Doctor Knows Best**

Kagome struggled to keep her emotions from making an appearance on her face.

Persius Alfero had pulled a miraculous turn around and managed to wake up after the ordeal his parents had put him through. It took a number of days to get the infection and attendant fever under control. The cultures his primary physician had taken told them what they were fighting and they had him on the mend within the week.

The only lingering issue was the damage to his ears. Upon first waking, Kagome had done some simple tests and examination to determine the extent of the problem. Percy couldn't hear. She'd hoped the damage would heal. Damage to the ear drum of the type the half lynx had suffered was fairly likely heal on its own, given time and no further possible situations likely to result in repeat damage.

As such, Kagome had again advised his parents against taking him home again. When the pair threatened to ignore her medical opinion again, she'd painted a bleak picture for Percy's chances of hearing again. Take off and landing just once while his ears had been blocked by fluid was damaging enough. The fact their journey here had required three separate flights increased the chances that their boy would never fully recoup the hearing he'd lost. It was part of the reason she and the primary physician in Europe had both advised against traveling.

The Alferos hadn't liked hearing it. They'd blamed her inefficacy for their actions. Threatened to sue, all while continuing to insist that her human understanding was insufficient to comprehend the abilities of Percy's youkai heritage. Neither one cared to acknowledge that they were jointly insulting the comprehension of one half of the pair.

One of them was human, else Percy would not be in her clinic with such damaged hearing. Hanyou only came from a pair that consisted of one human and one youkai. There was no other natural way in this world. No youkai would have come down with the sinus infection Percy had and no human would have needed an expert or been required to travel so far to find one.

Of course their blatant displeasure over Kagome's diagnosis didn't stop either of them from disappearing to parts unknown for a week after that. Clearly they were assured of Percy's longevity and future health enough to travel without care, despite the possibility of permanent life-altering hearing loss. Kagome had no idea where the two had gone, but they hadn't bothered to call Percy or check in with the nanny.

Kagome had never encountered this particular breed of parent in her time doctoring hanyou. Most were overprotective of their incredibly vulnerable half-blooded children. Some struggled so hard to pay for the medical treatment that kept their babies alive their health deteriorated badly. All checked in regularly if they didn't stay on-site the entire time. There was always a family member present with her other patients. The only time the halfers were ever alone with the SIMHH staff were during tests that required absolute sterility or isolation with the testing equipment.

Percy had been left with a rather distracted nanny that showed no affection for her charge nor allowed him to transfer any in her direction. Kagome had the distinct impression that the woman had only been hired on after the transfer from Europe and probably didn't even speak a language the small hanyou could understand. If he ever managed to heal enough that he could communicate verbally with his assigned companion.

The poor boy had wilted visibly as the days passed, depression weakening his immune system. He waited patiently for his parents to return from wherever they had disappeared to, alone in an environment he couldn't hear and didn't speak his language in any case. Percy had grown incredibly attached to Rin. So much so that he'd attempted to follow her out of his room and into Kagome's office for bedtime more than once.

Kagome had been forced to take him back to his room and check him over to make sure he hadn't picked something up in his foray into the greater, more vulnerable areas of the Institute. Each time, she'd found the nanny asleep on the job. She hadn't bothered to berate the woman. It wasn't her place, and it wasn't as if Percy had come to any harm, but he was a lonely boy whose only viable connection was Katarin.

Kagome didn't know what kind of life the half lynx had at home, but she imagined he'd at least been able to talk to his caretakers and make friends with his minders. Here there was just Rin keeping him above water.

Percy naturally missed his parents and waited patiently for the pair that birthed him to return, obediently putting up with various examinations, tests and hospital food that clearly wasn't his favorite. He silently spent his days staring out the window of his room looking into the courtyard zen garden and watching the sun play through the air.

But when his parents had bothered to come back to the Institute, they'd only stayed a few hours before leaving again. They hadn't even seen him awake! Percy never saw them and it effected his health in the same way it would effect any other child's. He wanted to see them and he didn't understand why they didn't share his desire. Kagome couldn't explain it to him. Their motivations bewildered her as much as the boy, but it really wasn't her place to explain it.

She wasn't a family counselor. Kagome was just a doctor and while she disapproved of their behavior and the choices they made, it wasn't her job to fix it or them. She wasn't trained for it.

Still, it was a good thing Connor had stepped up to manage Percy's beads or the boy could have died when he relapsed in their absence. Depression did terrible things to a body's immune system. It was even worse when that body already had a compromised immune system. They battled a renewed fever for several days, worked to drain the fluid build up in and behind his ears, praying that it wouldn't cause more damage to the already fragile area struggling to heal from previous injury.

There was no doubt in her mind that they would have lost him completely if either of his parents or even his nanny had been responsible for Percy's beaded bracelet. All three were missing when the situation was at its worse. The parents were off on another jet-setter trip and the nanny had apparently received time off for a family wedding. If they'd been forced to wait for a single one to return, Percy might have slipped beyond their ability to help him. Death was far to easy for hanyou to achieve when they were completely healthy.

That time was a bit rough on Connor though. His movements had been harshly curtailed while Percy was ill. They'd set him up with his own cot in Percy's room and Ginta had been required to pick him up clothing and various other necessaries.

Rin and Teddy had kept vigil with the staff. Cleo did her best to keep them out from underfoot with stories and visits to June who'd grown quite rotund by that point in her pregnancy. The two were fascinated by everything that was going on in the first pregnancy either had been exposed to. It was rather soothing watching the two try to work out how babies got inside of June and how they were supposed to get back out again.

Their innocent curiosity and speculation was a bit of a relief to all the staff struggling to keep Percy among the living. It was wonderful to step out of that room where they were fighting the hanyou condition to prevent the horror of death by genetic flaw to the natural awe of youth in the face of mysterious pregnancy. Life was fighting to take life away in one room and working to create it in the talk of two children in another.

Kagome's therapist had worried over Rin's near constant presence in the tiny world of the Institute, but the child psychologist she'd suggested found Rin-chan's grasp of the situation exceptionally well-adjusted for her age. It had even been suggested that taking her away from it would be detrimental to both Rin and the two boys currently admitted. It had also been recommended that her presence would prove beneficial to all future patient transitions.

Kagome had no intention of using her daughter as a tool, but she wouldn't worry about anything on that side of things until Rin was old enough for school.

Kagome counted to ten as she stared at Percy's parents across the desk in her office.

Percy's parents had been convinced the boy would manage to heal his damaged ear drums. They'd ignored her warnings of his chances the longer time went on.

Most human ear drum injuries of this nature would heal within four to six weeks without further intervention. Pure youkai suffering the same trouble would heal a little faster. But there were some injuries that couldn't be healed at all. Most were suffered after close proximity to explosions, percussive injuries and the occasional diver's ear. Humans were more vulnerable to some types and youkai to others. Both could lose hearing permanently if the injury was severe enough or recurred. All injuries resulted in some loss of hearing range, like the slow growing deafness in adults who listened to overly loud music.

Percy had suffered the initial injury after their first take off. The flight was long enough that his hanyou healing had kicked in before the landing caused fresh injury. Then the layover had produced the same effect again. Each cycle was repeated for the two following flights required to get him from the hospital in Europe to SIMHH.

Still, the pair of jet-setters refused to accept that their boy might never hear again at all. They were convinced his youkai healing would guarantee successful healing regardless of the time it was taking.

Kagome had wanted to kick them both when they told her that, refusing to accept the diagnosis when the poor kid's hearing had been tested over and over again since they brought him. This long since the original injury left little room for Percy to recover without major surgery, and even that would only supply him with a limited range of hearing for a short number of decades. His relapse certainly hadn't helped the situation any.

She couldn't get his parents to accept that. A full youkai would heal the damage. At least, that was what Mr. Alfero had asserted. Kagome had refrained from pointing out that a hanyou wasn't full youkai. She likewise hadn't drawn their attention to the fact that only a select few breeds of youkai were guaranteed to heal every injury given enough time and Lynx were not among that small number.

There were limits to what Percy's healing ability could do. Kagome wasn't sure if his parents were just disconnected with reality, unable to accept the responsibility of having caused their child irreparable damage by ignoring medical advice or just plain in denial. Whatever their deal was, Percy was the one paying for it. He should have been released last week, with his parents taking him home and looking into the various solutions to his new reality. Percy needed to start learning some viable sign language. His parents needed to find some way to communicate their support to him. He needed an environment that would build him up and teach him what he needed to know in order to someday live on his own.

That was the job of a parent. To provide their child with the tools and skills necessary to become an independent and productive member of the world around them. Kagome was fairly certain that once the truth sank in, the future didn't look bright for Percy with these two self-centered parents at the helm of his life.

They insisted Percy wasn't better until his ears worked properly and therefore would not allow him to check out and move on with his life.

In response to their absolute refusal to accept their son was now functionally deaf, Kagome had been forced to call in a youkai otologist to examine the damage to Percy's ears. Dr. Carough was an expert in youkai hearing injuries, diseases and solutions. He agreed with Kagome, regardless of the fact Percy wasn't full youkai and didn't fall neatly into his field of expertise. For thoroughness, she'd called in a human expert and had the two consult on the case.

The examination of Percy's ears, human and hanyou had revealed consistent damage to the tympanic membrane that had scarred over. Surgery had only been developed to fix human ears, and there was no guarantee it would prove beneficial in this case or even last beyond the shift to his hanyou organs on the top of his head. Both agreed that it was highly unlikely that the poor boy would regain his hearing at this point.

As such, Kagome sent the human expert home and retained the youkai to talk with Percy's parents. She'd contacted Cheryl to locate some options for teaching Percy how to deal with the silence that would typify his life from now on. There was a robust and flexible plan put together to hand over to the snooty pair for them to implement.

The only thing Persius had going for him right now was the fact his mother was human. Hanyou with youkai mothers were weaker against human ailments because they lacked the antibodies inherited from a human mother and strengthened by the transfer of further antibodies via breast milk.

It wasn't a universal boon for every hanyou. Teddy likely would have had the same troubles regardless of a switch in human parent from father to mother. The reptile and human mix was universally difficult in every case she'd managed to identify. The temperature difference by itself caused terrible seizures that could damage various areas of the brain. All it took was one effecting the wrong section and an innocent child never woke up again. Or forgot how to breath on their own. There had been such a case in Nicaragua that she'd been consulting on. An Iguana youkai had partnered with a human female.

The child had survived to three before the seizures started. Four years later and the little girl damaged the area that regulated involuntary breathing. Kagome refrained from shaking her head as she returned to the present. Her therapist said her frequent trips into thought tangents were a coping mechanism. She needed to stop avoiding the unpleasant conversations in the here and now.

"Mr. and Mrs. Alfero, I'm pleased you could make it to this meeting," Kagome managed to keep her sarcasm and condescension out of her voice. It was a near thing though. "This is Dr. Carough, a well-known youkai expert on otology, he deals with medicine concerning ears and associated diseases and injuries. I've called him in to consult over your son's injuries and continued state as Percy's ears have failed to heal thus far on their own."

"Finally admitted your lack of knowledge over the situation," Mr. Alfero rudely asserted as he shook Dr. Carough's hand and pounded him on the back. Clearly Mr. Alfero's issues with Kagome weren't only related to her species. He must also question her general intelligence based on her gender as well.

"Actually, Mr. Alfero, I must concur with Dr. Higurashi's diagnosis of the boy's condition. He will not heal the injuries," Miles declared in a clear even voice. "Not even a full-blooded youkai could heal the repeat damage his ears have taken."

"My boy?" Mr. Alfero asked weakly. "You haven't really looked at him. He can heal this, he can get passed this."

"You are quite correct," Miles replied. "The young Persius can get past this moment in his young life with support and teaching. Dr. Higurashi and I have collected information on the various resources for the hearing impaired found both locally and in your home country. He will need to relearn how to communicate properly. Both of you should either learn a proper sign language or develop a truncated version you all can share."

"Now wait just a minute here, this is happening too fast!" Percy's father protested. "You just told me my boy will never hear again and you want us to change our entire lives because you didn't fix it?"

"Mr. Alfero," Kagome cut in calmly. "This diagnosis was related to you on four separate occasions before this afternoon. I warned you in strong tones within his first week at SIMHH that this was a possibility and advised you both to look into methods to help your son live productively and learn the new modes of communication he would be required to use. This is a direct result of the injuries he incurred before arriving at the institute." It was a real struggle to avoid pointing out that they were directly responsible for this by moving Persius against medical advice. As true as the statement was, she wasn't supposed to be combative when dealing with patients or their guardians regardless of her personal opinion.

"But-" Mrs. Alfero tried to speak up in her quiet, trilling, accented voice. Kagome had never heard the woman complete a single sentence on her own.

This time was no different as her husband cut in to finish the thought for her. "If you had done your job and come when we first called for you, there would have been no cause to move him!"

Kagome stood from her chair. "Mr. Alfero, your son is not my only patient and at the time of first contact he wasn't even the most critical concern. He had a simple sinus infection that could have been cared for quite well by the physician in charge of his primary care. I gave my recommendations at that time and had they been followed as delivered, Percy would be back to normal with the full use of his hearing weeks ago."

"My son is heir to my line and-"

"And I have a patient who is the last surviving offspring of a mated pair that has been sundered by death. I have three long distance patients whose death could lead to civil war in Africa. I have a young woman on the premises who is daughter to a local official experiencing her first pregnancy. I have five other patients I'm consulting over long distance and each is recovering satisfactorily without my immediate presence," Kagome cut him off. "Percy is a delight and very special, we all adore him, but my time is at premium on a global stage."

"Dr. Higurashi is the premier and only physician at this time to specialize in halfer specific medicine," Dr. Carough backed her up. "She's breaking ground and saving lives, but she can only do that if she is constantly available for consultation. Most of her patients do not travel to see her, they consult via long distance communications as your original doctor did." Miles was youkai, and therefore allowed to show a bit more aggression than Kagome. "The time for arguing semantics and hovering under the umbrella of denial has long since passed. Your son is the one who has gotten the worst of this situation. The changes necessary to support him may inconvenience you but they are vital to his continued survival."

"My son is stronger than this, he will heal the damage," Mr. Alfero insisted.

"And I repeat," Dr. Carough asserted quite pointedly. "Persius cannot heal his current injuries. Accept that."

"You are not listening," the Lynx youkai growled solidly. "_My_ son cannot be deaf for life."

"But he is," Dr. Carough repeated.

"Then he is not my son!" Mr. Alfero shouted. "My heir cannot be imperfect in any way."

"I see," Kagome blinked slowly, trying to hold down the feeling of rage burgeoning in her chest. She wanted this male out of her office and off the grounds of her clinic. She felt like the place would need a serious scrubbing to insure his arrogant pride and overwhelming chauvinism wouldn't contaminate anyone else. "You are disowning your heir because he cannot heal the damage received in transit to the Institute."

"He is not my heir!" came the exclamation.

"Perhaps not, but he is your son," Kagome insisted. "He carries your genetics same as any other child sired by you on any female, whatever their species or heritage. If you intend to disclaim him, what will happen to Percy?"

"I don't care!" Mr. Alfero shouted, completely ignoring his female's desperate tugs at his arm for attention. Kagome rather hoped the woman would open her mouth and voice a protest worthy of a true mother. So far she'd never gone against anything he'd said, but that wasn't unusual in the older pairings.

A lot of cultures were patriarchal. Kagome didn't know how long the two had been together. She didn't know how they came to be together, whether it was a match of affection, love or obligation to family. She couldn't tell if Mrs. Alfero enjoyed time spent with her mate or if it was just a habit he enforced on her. When the woman failed to open her mouth or insist on the point of getting her spouse's attention, Kagome could no longer bring herself to care.

"What do you intend to do?" The question crept from the direction of Dr. Carough. Miles probably realized that the words needed to be said by someone other than Kagome. She was steamed and something must have started to show on her face. "The boy must have a guardian, you are required to support his continued development in some way."

"I don't care what happens to him, but I'll not see him again!"

"You intend to abandon him?" it flew from her mouth with a cloud of accusation hidden under stale tones. This was the one part of her chosen life she was finding lacking. She wanted to take Percy from his parents and find him a better home, one that would love him properly and care about _him_ instead of what he supposedly represented. But she was a doctor, not a social worker and Percy's family were just visiting from a foreign country.

"You will not impugn my honor!" Mr. Alfero growled hotly.

"You sired him, caused him great permanent injury, and now seek to shirk responsibility for your actions by ignoring his existence," Miles added in support of her assessment. "The situation amounts to little else at this point."

"I cannot have a son who can't hear. Our kind uses every sense to hunt, to be what we are. No other Lynx will accept him with such a flaw," Mr. Alfero attempted to explain.

"Not even you," Kagome added abruptly. "Surely there have been individuals of your species who have lost limbs in wars and altercations. Certainly a few have lost ears and eyes and gained scars in their place. Why can you not think of Percy the same way?"

"Those are battles wounds," came the male's condescending reply.

"And so is this. Life is a battle, every old warrior will tell you the same," Dr. Carough replied. He would be on Percy's side in this naturally. Miles' youngest daughter had gone deaf after repeated exposure to explosions in a terrorist attack in Oklahoma as a kid. She was an owl. Hearing and sight were important senses for them. Losing one was crippling, but he'd worked hard to negate as much of the inherent handicap she'd gained as possible. Miles loved his daughter, he was good dad. By comparison, Kagome thought Percy's father needed to be taken out and neutered so he could never breed again.

"That is an empty platitude offered to crippled old soldiers," the lynx scoffed. "The flawed brat is just a child. To treat him the same as old warriors is to insult those who lost vital pieces in combat."

"We cannot tell you what to do. We are merely your son's doctors. But I hope that whatever you do decide to do as regards where and how Percy grows up, you will do what is best for _him_," Kagome cut in to what was clearly going to be a never-ending argument. She had other patients to check in with today. June could pop at any moment and the mother was expecting twins-that had surprised just about everyone in on it. Teddy was all right under Connor and Hakkaku's care, but they'd just gotten in another patient from Africa.

Giselle had been stable enough to move, so her parents had brought her to Kagome directly. They were worried over her lack of typical age markers. Giselle was sixteen, but still looked as if she belonged in grade school. Preliminary examinations by her primary care physician indicated her growth was stalled by the delayed release of certain maturing hormones. Her horns should have come in already. She had the protrusions that indicated they would appear, but they still hadn't broken the skin when they should have years ago. Her height remained unaltered, and her breasts had refused to bud.

Hanyou growth and development usually followed either the youkai schedule or the human one based on the mix of genetics and environmental factors. There were documented cases where growth was retarded beyond those factors. Kagome needed to run tests to check if there was some human or youkai condition that would block natural growth responsible for this or if Giselle was just delayed and would eventually grow into a fully developed adult.

Giselle was not more important that Percy. Percy was not more important that Teddy. Teddy was not more important than June and her soon to be born babies. And June was not more important than Giselle. All of Kagome's patients were important and she cared for each. Percy's situation was tearing her apart in little ways as she _knew_ that no matter what happened, he would be hurt by whatever proceeded. This conversation had illustrated that quite clearly.

"That boy is no longer important," Mr. Alfero snarled at her.

"Perhaps not to you, but that does not make the child any less worthy of happiness and love," Miles returned blandly. "By all means, if his connection to you is so distasteful, dissolve it, but find him a good home and support him financially. He didn't ask to be brought into the world and he didn't ask to be injured so badly he could not heal. Do right by him, please, because while your care only extended as long as his perfect health, ours does not."

"How dare you!" the Lynx glared at the unassuming otologist. "What I do with that little defective brat-"

"Please!" interjected the heretofore unassertive woman at his side. She said nothing more, but Mr. Alfero stopped mid-tirade. He took a deep breath before sweeping his arm around the woman and escorting her wordlessly from the office and likely from the building entirely.

Dr. Carough sighed out long and slow. "It is easy to forget that males of his type still exist in the world." Kagome blinked at him mutely. "My species never treated females so badly or looked on injury through accident as less than that obtained in battle. It is not a species thing, but there are some species who have universally acknowledged the asset of intelligent females regardless of geographical prejudices. That male's opinion of female intelligence was likely formed during a time in which all females were not suffered to be educated well. He likely will never wake up to the change in times."

"Do you know the Alferos?" Kagome asked.

"Not specifically," the owl youkai responded evenly. "But I recognize those of his ilk. I'm not certain if you are familiar with the old youkai custom of courting via scent box?" When she indicated her familiarity he continued, "I believe Mr. Alfero mated his betrothed's body slave in place of the youkai bride in order to keep both females."

Kagome nodded her understanding before asking a question, "Then why did he breed with that woman instead of the youkai female?"

Miles raised a feathery eyebrow before turning his gaze to the open door, "Likely the youkai female was killed in one of the wars that swept through Europe in the last century or so. Many youkai and humans were lost during that time. We might find that previous heirs were lost that same way. His own arrogance likely assured him that his genetic material would so overpower the human's that the effects of her blood would be negligible and therefore unimportant."

Kagome sighed before raising to her feet and genially escorting the visiting doctor from the Institute. "Whatever the outcome, thank you for consulting on this case for us. Your expertise was invaluable."

"Think nothing of it," Dr. Carough smiled. "Call on me whenever you have need. I may not have connection to any hanyou yet, but the future is full of possibilities. My eldest daughter is currently dating a human. Better we see what progress can be made before a new generation arrives with greater numbers and all the same problems."

"My thoughts exactly," Kagome bowed the youkai through the door before turning to resume her rounds and check in with the team getting Giselle settled in and properly fitted for a set of beads keyed to the individual chosen to remain glued to the teenager's side.

Kagome firmly resolved to negotiate with the local youkai in charge to have the Institute grounds treated as sovereign territory under her domain. She wanted carte blanch to eject any element from the area that interfered with her patients, whether by verbal, physical or spiritual threat. Mr. Alfero's tendency to flare his youki when displeased had thrown Teddy off his balance and instigated Braxton Hicks contractions in June on two previous visits. Hanyou had enough stacked against them without having visitors making things worse. She had anticipated his tantrum today by shielding Teddy and June's room earlier and she needed to bring them down. The energy was needed for other things.


	48. To Dream Of Sleep

This chapter will be a bit quieter than we've seen recently but no less important. Sometimes big things can happen in the quiet epiphanies that hit us in the small, quiet hours of morning. Sometimes self-realization has the biggest impact on the course of a persons life and sometimes silent contemplation reveals new ideas that release us from previous burdens. Think outside the box, throw the box away, and when a door closes, climb in a window!

Calendar: June

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**To Dream of Sleep**

Sesshoumaru had believed in the easy, disconnected way of believing that his mate's name would become known to him with her success. Newspapers and respected medical journals would surely laud her efforts to bridge the gap between the old days of prejudice that had prevented the birth of hanyou and the new days were the mixing was growing increasingly common. Her work was a symbol of tolerance and hope.

He had been wrong. The opening of the Saotomeh Institute of Medicine for Hanyou Health had hardly been a blip on the radar outside the paper in the nearest town. The pictures published and names recorded were all politicians, consulting doctors and the pair who cut the ribbon in honor of their late hanyou son who inspired the whole journey. He knew her whereabouts most days of the week by virtue of the single article he'd found on-line about SIMHH. The address was listed, but naturally the staff wasn't.

Her growing success rate treating hanyou patients hadn't been reported in any medical journals he'd been able to find, and didn't list her as the singular author of breakthroughs in any case. Part of her continued anonymity outside the medical community with personal knowledge of either her or one of her sponsors had to do with the very real fact she was adapting already established techniques and treatments to hanyou needs. She wasn't developing anything really new, just suppressing youki first. Youki suppression wasn't new either and it was hardly considered a medical procedure.

Almost all surgeries performed on pure youkai required minor and incredibly temporary youki suppression simply to prevent the incision from closing up before the surgery had been completed. Such was part of the reason surgery of that type was extremely rare, usually confined to life or death situations like removing tumors. The herbs she used were similar to a bark used in Europe that had similar duration but very limited application. There were youkai trees that produced fruit most species of the longer lived species considered toxic for their youki suppression properties. Some small breeds of youkai frogs secreted a mucus that would sharply suppress youki in a small area. A distillation from this source was used in dental procedures, else it would be a lot more painful when conducting dental repair.

This of course left out mention of the various techniques used throughout history when humans and youkai were at odds. No power on earth wanted any single method of stronger youki suppression documented for general use. Absolutely none had been used in a medical setting for the simple reality that humans had never been formally allowed to study or treat youkai. Most were unfit for the application as their effects were violent on the subject effected by them, but some were...more subtle.

Which was neither here nor there, as his mate hadn't developed any of them. No one would hold her in high respect for using any of the proscribed youki suppression tools on children, whether they would have died without their application or not. Anything she did was still in the experimental stages and likely wouldn't find much play in journals yet anyway.

It was frustrating that no one was singing praises for a woman so deserving of recognition, but his mate never bothered to care. All her concerns were reserved for the dissemination of what worked to the patient demographic that desperately needed it. Her world revolved around saving precious lives.

Sesshoumaru was coming to learn that there wasn't going to be one obtainable goal that would identifiably mark her success and fame. There would always be another hanyou in need of aid that would require something different. His mate was perfecting a special way of thinking rather than a singular therapy or treatment plan. Flexibility was a greater asset when dealing with hanyou health issues than anything else.

Sesshoumaru stared out at the panorama of the night skyline. Night had fallen hours ago and the twilight that flirted with the clouds overhead pretended a darkness that couldn't even compare with true starscapes outside the city. There was no moon tonight which had prompted Inuyasha and Kikyou to retire early to their shared bedroom for privacy.

Inuyasha wasn't truly afraid of his human night being found out and never had been, but the change always made him uncomfortable. He was vulnerable and in feudal days this information would be life-threatening, but in the modern world it simply meant his vulnerability was more towards illness and disease rather than hunters in youkai or human skin.

Sesshoumaru had never really been one to find the eternal glow of the city comforting. He was born to live in the open spaces of the pack estates. He lived there until his teen years found him booted from the property and living alone in this apartment. The glow had been a foreign invader at the start and now it was like a benign parasite. It didn't bother him, but neither did it improve his state of mind. This wasn't home, for all that he'd spent most of his life in Japan, home was in a country he'd yet to set foot in.

Golden eyes swept from the wide window to the clock glowing on his nightstand and noted the time. Inuyasha would spend the entirety of night sequestered in his room. Sesshoumaru rose from his bed before quietly heading for the medicine cabinet in the en suite bathroom.

Inuyasha's biggest discomfort on new moons wasn't his dampened hearing or his limited vision. His hearing was hardly an issue in a closed room and wouldn't have much mattered given the volume the younger inu tended to play his music at. His joints sometimes ached depending on the time of year, but even that took a back seat to the poor boy's terrible indigestion.

As a hanyou, Inuyasha could eat like a pig without major consequences. Youkai didn't suffer heartburn or acid reflux. Bloating wasn't even an issue for most breeds. Many youkai had more than one stomach and various other methods for dealing with overindulgence.

Humans were not capable of easily surviving Inuyasha's tendency to gorge himself at meal times. Sesshoumaru would have offered the stomach medicine immediately after sunset except the dolt's pride wouldn't have accepted the assistance then. It was only after suffering for several hours that the boy could be induced to take something for the discomfort.

Inuyasha wouldn't even allow the digestive aids be stored in the bathroom he and Kikyou shared. If the boy found it, he'd throw it out bombastically railing at the other two occupants for even supposing to keep them around. Hanyou pride was bothersome, Sesshoumaru sighed as he pulled two doses from the container before heading to the kitchen for a bottle of water.

Sesshoumaru had pride in himself, but he didn't automatically disregard the possibility of injury or illness because of his inherent heritage. He may be blessed with near constant good health, but he would never take it for granted in a world where so many children wouldn't grow up. He took all unusual aches seriously. It was necessary given the current radiation levels in Japan. The danger wasn't as high as in former years since the tsunami disaster, but as it had been since the last great war, radiation lingered. It poisoned the ground and water, seemingly forever. This unnatural state of affairs was a blight on the youkai of Japan. The effects were disproportionately harsh on the longer lived species.

Hanyou were almost as susceptible and the best way to monitor the danger was to glimpse them over at their most vulnerable. Like Inuyasha on the nights of the new moon.

Sesshoumaru knocked at the dark wood door that separated Kikyou and Inuyasha from the rest of the world. He knew the moment he entered, he would find the hanyou curled up in severe discomfort on the floor against the wall. Sesshoumaru never understood why the younger male didn't just crawl into bed and try to sleep through his pain. Perhaps it was some instinctive holdover from the blood's withdrawal.

Kikyou cracked the door open before quickly leaving him in the doorway to drape herself over her mate. The woman had complained about it to Sesshoumaru once. He'd had to speculate wildly to offer up an explanation for Inuyasha's overwhelming need to have her closer than usual when his senses folded in on him.

It was a difficult conversation to have, given Sesshoumaru had never experienced a time when his individual senses were not at their peak. His imagination didn't often receive that kind of exercise. His art was about communicating real feelings rather than fabricating responses to experiences he'd never had. His dreams were about family and mate, success in supporting each pack member new and old emotionally and financially. When he really let himself go in his hopes for the future he included success in his art too. He couldn't bring himself to be more unrealistic than that.

Sesshoumaru just didn't have that level of whimsy in him. Even having children borne of his mate's body from his seed was a fairly farfetched wish. Miko had terrible difficulty carrying hanyou babes to term. Granted those statistics had been established in a time far removed from this one.

Kikyou glanced up from her spot against her groaning lover. "Is that the stomach medicine?" she asked quietly. Sometimes the words spoken around Inuyasha irritated him more than just the pain in his over filled stomach. He was ever irked by being spoken around, especially if the topic was about him.

"Hn," Sesshoumaru acknowledged before handing medicine and bottle to Kikyou over the whining male.

"I don't need it," Inuyasha grumbled before curling further in on himself, indigestion eating him. "I'm not weak, keh!"

"Mind your words, Inuyasha," Sesshoumaru warned his brother mildly. "Your temporary state of species is constant in your mate. She may take exception to you insulting her strength."

"Keh," Inuyasha gruffly sighed. "I'm all right."

"If that were the case," Sesshoumaru argued, "You wouldn't be worrying your mate by prolonging your own discomfort this way."

"Take the medicine, Inuyasha," Kikyou coaxed. "Maybe you'll be able to get some sleep."

"I never sleep on the new moon," Inuyasha grumpily insisted. Sesshoumaru could well believe that was true. These last years in which they had shared living space supported the assertion. Inuyasha's indigestion lasted most of the night, failing to ease until the quiet hours just before dawn.

But for all his belligerence, Inuyasha wasn't such a bad patient. Perhaps it was the routine of the thing, but the hanyou would only curl up in a ball and groan his way through the dark hours. He didn't go out of his way to impose on the serenity of others. Sesshoumaru wondered if any of their parents knew how the new moons passed every month. That their golden boy would moan with pain hidden away from the world.

Kikyou gently overcame Inuyasha's weak reluctance and fed her mate the medicine before offering him tiny sips of water.

Sesshoumaru watched them until the water was gone and Kikyou handed him the empty receptacle. It was easy to tell when the pills went into effect. Inuyasha's tightly wound ball of aching agony loosened enough for him to lean back and the woman to slide to his side. Sesshoumaru nodded to both of them before retreating from the room and leaving them to quiet privacy for the rest of the night. He used to look forward to new moons in that first flat in Australia as it was the only night guaranteed to lack sexual noises coming from their room. He'd grown out of that anticipation as his care of Inuyasha and the reality of hanyou mortality became increasingly real for him.

Sesshoumaru wandered back to his room and the big empty bed that wouldn't gift him with sleep. It was unlikely he would get much rest tonight and his sleeplessness had nothing to do with the moon phases.

It was funny how his mate had slowly lost her trouble with sleep over the years. Sesshoumaru had gained an increasingly terrible case of insomnia in her stead. It started with the almost wet dreams that never really went away right after he marked the woman. The erotic visions never exactly quit, though they did grow more sporadic with the passage of time. It was a rare period of days when he could sleep undisturbed by unanswered longings for the body of his mate. The desire only increased with time and understanding. He wanted the warmth of her skin under his hands. He wanted her tight wetness welcoming him with a passionate desire that matched his own. He ached for the taste of her on his tongue and the many nuances of her natural scent playing over every breath.

On the nights that weren't plagued by unfulfilled carnal need, he dreamed of closeness. Sesshoumaru would seek out her physical warmth beside him for the comfort of companionship. When his sheets rewarded him with cool emptiness it jerked him from whatever level of rest he'd managed to achieve. It was strange to realize he missed a body next to him that had never been there. Sleeping beside someone had never been routine to him. His lovers in former days had only been for the more catatonic need for rest than the peaceful embrace of companionable sleep. He'd never had the energy to reach out for any of them in his sleep, seeking no comfort from their presence.

Some nights he avoided sleep entirely. The ache wasn't restful. The hurt of loneliness only engendered impatience with the current reality. He wanted to hold his pup and soothe her worries directly when the friends she made at the institute went home or took a turn for the worse. He wanted to teach her all the things canines needed to learn and wrap her in the warmth and tactile comfort of pack when reality proved empty of joy.

He wanted to run his hands over his mate when her muscles ached with worry or over use. He wanted to rub the pain from every limb in tactile application of his instinctual need to meet her needs. Sesshoumaru wanted to find the end of his dreams when he woke so that he could go back to sleep again with the certain knowledge of her affection and mutual desire. He wanted her to reach for him as often as he reached for her.

Barring that, he wanted to be able to sleep through the night even if he spent it tossing and turning as he strove for culmination that wouldn't come. It might not be the most restful sleep to be had, but partial rest was better than none. The situation had deteriorated greatly in the last year.

It was likely a reflection of instinctive anxiety. The little subpack was stuck in limbo, still connected by the thinnest of threads to the greater Taishou pack, drifting in the great sea of almost gone. The end was coming. It just wasn't here yet and the tenuous situation was uncomfortable.

After their last, one-sided discussion with the alpha, Sesshoumaru had been completely barred from the estate grounds. Hiroyuki had learned craft through the decades of business management and hostile takeovers. He treated Inuyasha's criticism as rules and never repeated a punishment effort that had already failed him while arousing rage in the hanyou he was trying to bring back into the family fold. The stipend hadn't been effected, Sesshoumaru had no job to be fired from, the estate was all there was left.

Clearly, their father intended to push the former heir to commit some legal infraction that would remove Sesshoumaru from proximity with Inuyasha. It was illegal to shift youkai forms on public property. The Taishou pack had no other large properties held privately that would serve his needs. He could run in the park, if he could shift elsewhere before being walked to the grounds on leash like a common animal.

The Higurashi Shrine had a good size wood that they allowed him to stalk through, but it wasn't large enough to run or hunt in. Kikyou's family also had some property, but again the size was lacking and their woods were terribly empty of anything worth chasing. Likely due to the many efforts made to protect the naturally grown materials used in their products. They kept a bee hive and various bushes of flowers, and other aromatic plants. The trees were all sap producing, making him reluctant to get too close to them as the sticky material was exceptionally difficult to get out of his fur.

The shift itself was important as the release of energies helped keep his instincts in check. But the continued lack of exercise left him restless and on edge. Sesshoumaru missed the runs through Australian country side. He missed walking property lines in the baking sun. Since being back, his runs on the estate lands had been sporadic, but filled with the elusive traces of his grandfather's scent markings on certain trees. There was nowhere on earth where he was likely to catch a whiff of that comforting, familiar scent. Not even in the elder's former rooms. The Taishou alpha had most likely cleared the deceased inu's belongings out, re-purposing what was useful and discarding everything else.

Sesshoumaru wondered if his grandfather's photo albums had been saved from the incinerator. Hiroyuki saw no value in sentimental items. While it was a trait Sesshoumaru generally shared, the old inu's pictures were also a documentation of events that happened. A worthwhile endeavor, as knowledge of any type was important.

It was disheartening being kept from the only places on earth where the elder inu's scent still lingered, but it wasn't the punishment Hiroyuki had intended it to be. Sesshoumaru had long accepted he would be barred from such places in future. The loss was premature, but not a greater hardship than expected. Inuyasha hadn't been given the chance to nail the alpha for this latest foolishness. Hiroyuki had finally learned that lesson and no longer demanded the boy retrieve his stipend or tuition in person. Since the hanyou never spoke to his father otherwise, there hadn't been opportunity.

Sesshoumaru kept receiving summons though. The alpha wouldn't stop trying to fix what he perceived as broken. Inuyasha had proven implacable when dealt with directly. Hiroyuki probably believed going through Sesshoumaru would be more effective. But for all that the elder brother never went obviously or directly against the alpha, he was just as stubborn. His mate called him passive-aggressive. He considered it a form of safe dissension.

If he said nothing that could be taken as directly counter to the alpha's decrees, if he did nothing that appeared to work against Hiroyuki's dictates, then he couldn't be expelled from the pack. Sesshoumaru never undermined the alpha's authority with anyone. The only reason Inuyasha had learned their father wasn't everything a good alpha should be was because he asked questions and Sesshoumaru refused to lie. Even then, the former heir couched his explanations in the mildest terms possible. But there was no glazing over the fact their father had very real and blatant faults. Specism is ugly no matter how it exists. Dictatorship is only a good thing in the movies and books written by the tyrants that ruled that way. Neglect is only excusable when coupled with ignorance of the behavior and corrected when the fact is pointed out.

Sesshoumaru sighed as his golden eyes once again searched the light polluted sky for evidence that the stars existed beyond it.

His mate assured him that their home was far from any city and the nearest town was small. He knew the clinic was just as isolated as well. When the weather was warm enough, the two would settle under the open sky and gaze up into the eternity of space. Sesshoumaru loved hearing Rin yap about all the constellations her mother had pointed out on such nights. It was almost worth the sleepless night since he didn't receive a phone call then.

That was his main problem now. If his mate and pup didn't call him of an evening, Sesshoumaru simply couldn't relax enough to find any kind of rest. He needed the reassurance that all was well with them. If he couldn't hold them, touch them and assure himself of it using subtler means he needed the overt proof of it through bond and words.

His female had taken to closing down their bond while she worked. Sesshoumaru understood it. Hanyou care required all her concentration and the occasional brush of his youki could startle her into an accidental spike in reiki. The hanyou in her care were very sensitive to such ebb and flow of auras. A spike at the wrong time could shove the little turtle into a series of seizures. The newborn twins, Bridgit and Marta, were still unstable and incredibly vulnerable. Giselle was fairly stable beyond the stunting of her growth, and Patrice was apparently only suffering from some severe gingivitis.

New Patients came in all the time, there was no set schedule. Sometimes, like with Patrice or Percy, it was unnecessary, an overreaction by a worried parent. But other times it was serious, like with Teddy. Usually they had warning, but occasionally there was none.

Having the institute so remote was both a blessing and a hassle. Emergency patients were usually taken to a hospital closer to the city (or which ever location was closer to the emergency). Stabilizing physical trauma took precedence over species specific treatment. His mate informed him that blood loss had universal remedies across species, provided the type was right. Bones injuries were mostly consistent no matter the breed, with the exception of cases like Jeremy's. Emergency medicine needed very little modification to suit hanyou, it was the long term medicine, the long term solutions that needed help.

Finally his phone rang. His mate usually called every evening around the same time. Routine was good for Rin and her therapist said it was good for his female too. The reason she was so late tonight was directly related to her sponsors enforcing an executive intervention. She'd been complaining about it for days, but starting tomorrow, his lovely mate was on a week long vacation. She was not allowed to step foot in the institute or the group would bar her from the premises for a year. They feared burn out, a funny fear to have after the years they refused to give her time away from study.

The only other time they'd required his mate to take a break was after the adoption of their pup, and then it had only been for a month to adjust to having a pup. Not exactly a period of rest for her.

"Sorry to call so late," her soft voice whispered over his ear. "We had an emergency patient come in that needed to be stabilized. Cora's problem is like Trevor's, only more acute."

"Did they give you an extension or postponement to take care of it?" Sesshoumaru felt compelled to ask. Pneumonia was tricky in humans, in hanyou it was worse. Trevor had been unable to kick it entirely which was why he ultimately lost the fight. The new hanyou would need an expert to handle her case and his mate was the only one in the world.

"Yeah, until we had her stable, then they kicked me out," she snorted with disdain. "Hakkaku's got me on speed dial, Connor moved in to my office for the entire week, and Vaughn-sensei is convinced she knows enough to handle Cora and anything else that pops up."

"You do not feel the same," he observed mildly. He didn't believe it either, but then his opinion was drawn from hers and the information she gave him.

"She's a capable physician, but she's only ever worked with pure youkai," his female sighed. "Hanyou require a different way of thinking. Their problems aren't as straight forward. You can't just look at what's obviously wrong and expect to fix everything, you have to look deeper and longer down the road else the patient is lost for something you weren't looking at."

"Hn," Sesshoumaru hummed, the sound was noncommital. He didn't know enough of her work to be able to offer comfort or argue for less worry. He suspected this time off would be filled with stress as she worked herself towards ulcers and migraines. But he knew better than to try and talk her out of her anxieties.

"I've had several requests for white coats like mine," she changed the subject with a tired sigh. Sesshoumaru had replaced the first coat he'd given her with a new version that had cranes depicted with identifiers for the hanyou she'd already seen. The bottom hem was still littered with unmarked origami cranes, but the ones taking flight were easily distinguishable as Percy, Lacey, Teddy, Bridgit, Marta, and Giselle. He'd even added the hanyou from the Sanctuary network as well, though her staff wouldn't know who they were. The three on the front, hovering over her heart were clearly meant for Trevor, Jeremy, and her childhood friend and inspiration.

"This Sesshoumaru will not make a coat like yours for anyone else," he declared shortly. That coat was a labor of love, meant for his mate to show support and care.

"I wasn't going to ask you to, or rather, not one as intricate as mine, but could you do a simplified version for my staff? Plain cranes all around with one on the front breast pocket? That would be three to start with," she breathed, he could hear the smile in her tone. "If you still don't wish to do it, I'll see if I can find a business to do it instead, but I thought I'd ask you first."

Sesshoumaru considered her words. Her coat was time consuming, but mostly because each crane was unique above the miscellaneous crowd at the bottom. He designed each one for flight on her first coat and the second required special thought to symbolize her hanyou in recognizable ways without offending anyone. If he left out the flying cranes and kept it to just the crowd at the bottom and a single crane on the front breast pocket, it would be slightly faster to make.

"We'd pay you of course, cost of materials and time," she sweetened the pot a little. "I just thought I'd offer you the chance to earn a little money for some of your art. If you feel like it's selling out or compromising your work, I understand. As I said, I can find a printer or other business to do it instead if you don't wish to do it."

Sesshoumaru hadn't even thought about that aspect of things. He wasn't sentimental and his art wasn't Art that he did as a calling so much as something he did to unwind and pass time between contracts. Word had apparently gotten out after his third shrine job and now he seemed to be working his way through every small shrine in the city of Tokyo and surrounding areas. The work was steady, but not constant. He'd finish with one shrine before contracting with another for a set time period. Generally he completed the work a little early, but as the time had been set aside and contracted he couldn't just pick up the next job until time ran out. It allowed for hangups and difficulties in the schedule, but they seldom arose, leaving him with up to a week between jobs more often than not.

"Is there a time frame you had in mind?" he asked the pertinent question. This art thing was a side hobby. It wouldn't come ahead of his other work and he needed to know if they were expecting it faster than he was likely to be able to complete each coat.

"I don't know, how about by the end of the year? Is six months enough time?" she asked in return.

"More than," he replied carefully concealing his humor over her ridiculously generous deadline. It had only taken three weeks to complete her first coat and these three were supposed to be simpler than that. She'd said three to start with for her staff, but he was thinking he might as well make more for the nurses rotating in and out. Perhaps in future she could use them as sponsor gifts, or they could wait for her staff to increase over time. It wasn't like there was an expiration date on clothing. "Where is Rin?"

He could hear her huff over the phone, "Little rascal refused to leave with me. Ginta has promised to bring her by in a few hours when she starts to miss me. I don't think she realized that I'm not coming back again for several days, but she fully grasped that there was a new hanyou in the clinic. She always sleeps beside them the first night."

"What type of hanyou is this new one?"

"I believe she's mixed with some type of amphibian, it's a miracle she doesn't have the same problems Teddy did. But she's the fourth of five children. The older three are all doing amazingly well. The youngest has trouble being out of water for too long though," he heard her yawn before excusing herself.

"You don't know for sure?" Sesshoumaru was surprised at her vague answer.

"What I needed to know to get her settled was what species her mom was and who was going to be responsible for her suppression beads. The rest is usually immaterial until we kick the most dire problem and can move on to less pressing concerns. Like Teddy's seizures during temperature spikes, it's important to control the main problem and then figure out a way to prevent it recurring in future." She yawned again. It was a great deal later than she normally called him, almost morning where she was at, if the sun wasn't already peeking over the horizon. She needed rest, and while he likely still wouldn't find any for the lack of his pup speaking, she could.

"Get some sleep, mate," Sesshoumaru suggested as he stretched before getting up from his bed. He might as well get started on those coats, he wasn't sleeping anyway. But he'd at least get to wrap her in his youki non-stop for the next week. "Leave the bond open please." He could call her at any time, without fear of interrupting some other emergency. He didn't have to wait for her to call him. Her calls were daily, but occasionally erratic in timing. It made waiting for them difficult and taxed his patience terribly. Sesshoumaru fully understood. He was mature enough to accept. That didn't stop it from being difficult.

"I can do that," she responded with cheer tempered by physical and emotional exhaustion. She needed the time off from work, Sesshoumaru agreed with her sponsors on that, but he didn't agree that banning her from SIMHH was the best way to go about having her rest. It might be better to truncate her hours instead of cutting her off completely. "Good night Sesshoumaru, you try to get some sleep too. I know you've been having trouble."

"Hn, Good night mate," Sesshoumaru replied and hung up his phone. He wasn't entirely certain how she'd figured out his problem sleeping, but he wasn't terribly surprised either. She was wonderfully observant and a doctor as well. He smiled to himself before turning out the light and laying down. Perhaps it wasn't just the need to hear the voices of his pup and mate. Maybe it was a need to know that they cared. Somehow, sleep seemed a lot more obtainable after learning that she knew.


	49. Losing Grace

Welcome to another installment of PC, everyone's favorite fanfic de jour. Now we learn that Kagome's end of life isn't all smooth sailing, but then we knew that didn't we.

Calendar: September

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Losing Grace**

Kagome growled her frustration at the flat surface of her office desk, before loosening the edge of her coat from where it had caught in the closed drawer. Things had not been going very well the last few months. The institute has suffered its first death on the grounds and it should not have happened at all.

It had all started with her forced temporary eviction from SIMHH. Kagome hadn't wanted to do it. There wasn't another doctor she would trust with the care of her patients and she had argued that with her sponsors and benefactors at the time. Infuriatingly, they had dismissed her concern. Just because she was the _only_ doctor who had pursued and developed hanyou medicine didn't mean she was the only capable doctor in the world. Many of her mentors and benefactors were doctors of some reputation and experience, each were confident in their ability to handle her little clinic for the space of a mere seven days.

Kagome growled again as she paced around her office angrily. Their arrogance and false confidence on the subject of _her_ specialty was a constant problem when dealing with other doctors whatever their specialty. It was a rare colleague who accepted that the mix of genetics from two species could result in completely different approaches to healing. She found a better reception among veterinarians who doctor zoo animals and strange mixed breeds.

Kagome sighed in a hissing stream of air, trying to calm down after a rather volatile meeting with the lawyers. Patient death was never an easy thing to deal with in the absence of a call for legal action, but Kagome fully expected and understood the call for lawyers now.

Cora's acute case of pneumonia had been alleviated temporarily by Kagome's efforts to stabilize her before the imposed break. Her sponsors had refused to postpone or truncate her imposed vacation for the little half frog. Kagome's possibly pending health risks out ranked a child's life, apparently. There was no clemency approved, she was summarily ejected from her own clinic with a patient in risky condition because of the arrogance of her former mentors and others who'd had a hand in her education.

Forget that Kagome was the _only_ one with experience and learning with both species that make up hanyou. She was _just_ a fledgling who could most certainly be spared for a mere seven days without the world ending.

The instructions she'd left the staff and substitute doctor, Lorna Vaughn, should have seen the little girl to a smooth if slow recovery. The proscribed treatment required periodic suppression of youki for several hours duration interspersed with regular release of youki to offset any possible issues with temperature changes. Kagome had suggested twelve hours of suppression followed by three hours free of her new beads before repeating the suppression over the course of at least five days of the week she was gone. Human treatments would be used during Cora's enforced human time. Ventilators would be used as needed to ensure the child got enough oxygen, but never left on while her youki was free.

Youkai did not respond well to artificial means of breathing. The physical stress of fighting the machine would only worsen Cora's condition, undoing all the good achieved during her time with suppressed youki.

Had Cora been on the regimen as Kagome had suggested, she should have been on the road to recovery by the time the seven day hiatus was up.

Instead, Cora was worse by the time Kagome was allowed to return to the clinic.

The little girl lasted through the week in an agony of drowning in her own lungs, by the time Kagome had returned to the grounds the small hanyou was blue with lack of oxygen in her blood and lingering by a thread as tenuous as Trevor's had been in the end. Her body was fighting the ventilators and consciousness hadn't been achieved in three days. She was too weak then to turn the situation around. Suppressing her youki would have been an immediate death sentence. Cora's youki was all that was keeping her alive at that point and it was killing her as surely as untreated pneumonia would have done.

Kagome had stood vigil over her patient as she would for absolutely every patient she failed to pull out of the hands of death. She'd held the small cold hand until the monitors flat lined and the silence stood in screaming announcement of the flight of a life. Cora's father Bryce, had not handled the death well. She'd paid witness to Cora's parents' grief, the denial and demands for explanation. She stood there when Cora's father Bryce, flailing his hands in his angry denial, accidentally caught her arm and knocked it into a wall.

Kagome's bones had not survived the impact well. Six weeks later and she was just now getting out of the cast. A brace wrapped her wrist and forearm in its place for now. The pain was a constant reminder of how angry she was on Cora's behalf. How her parents should not have had to bury their daughter if Kagome's treatment plan had been followed the way she left it. Cora would have lived if her specialist doctor hadn't been barred from treating her personally.

Kagome was angry on their behalf, on Cora's behalf, on the behalf of all her patients at SIMHH.

The death in the Institute had inspired youki surges in every youkai and partial youkai apprised of it. The spikes had sent Teddy into another series of seizures. Giselle had suffered a spontaneous growth spurt that had result in terribly brittle bones and left her in a state of near starvation. Kagome theorized the half Tsessebe (sess'uh bee) had reacted to the danger and death energies in the air as a defensive adaptation. She could run faster with longer limbs. It was a short-sighted instinct as Giselle was likely to injure herself if she didn't starve from the energy expenditure first.

Marta and Bridgit, the impossible twin infants had become increasingly fussy from the tension in the air around them. Bridgit was bad enough regularly, her half cat genetic personality traits could make her seem particularly colicky, but it was Marta that worried Kagome more. Kagome tried not to imagine how June had done it, but somehow she had met two different species of youkai and slept with them close enough together to conceive both her babies around the same time so that both resulting infants were full term at birth. Marta was a half mouse to Bridgit's half cat, and being half of a youkai species that specialized in running from danger to survive had made Marta so anxious as to have difficulty feeding in an environment rich in grief and anger.

Rin growled every time Dr. Vaughn made an attempt to enter the building, having figured out on her own that the other doctor was the reason for all this trouble and pain. Kagome hadn't told her pup of it. It was hard enough trying to teach the little girl what death was and that Cora wasn't coming back. The young coyote had not taken the lesson well. She was having such difficulty accepting it that Sesshoumaru had suggest Kagome take their pup in for grief counseling. The little female had taken to spending far more time in her native fur making it difficult for Kagome to assess her pup's emotional state.

Kagome had started an inquest on behalf of Cora's parents. It required she find a lawyer who was just as good as Barley-san, as the lawyer worked on behalf of some of her mentors and sponsors. Luckily, he'd agreed with her that some inquiry needed to be made and had directed Kagome to a few candidates. The people who'd been nurturing Kagome's career needed to learn that _she_ was more capable than they at treating her patients and that there were real consequences to dismissing her suggestions.

Kagome's instructions had been specific and clear. The method had been perfected and tested on other hanyou with similar ailments. Dr. Vaughn had countermanded the standing orders resulting in the death of Kagome's patient. When Cora had shown absolutely no improvement, the youkai female had not contacted the only specialist over the treatment that had been eschewed or the one that was failing in its place. Dr. Vaughn had not called Kagome to consult or give a second opinion and she had not communicated to Kagome that the prescribed treatment had been circumvented.

Kagome well knew why Dr. Vaughn hadn't continued with the scheduled youki suppression periods. Lorna was a youkai and suppression of what most youkai considered their greatest strength seemed counter intuitive when a patient was ill. It was about species pride and the arrogance that a doctor with longer history of experience in general practice of medicine would know more than the one person specializing in this specific patient demographic.

Her staff had done what they could around the impediment of Kagome's substitute. Connor had switched shifts so that every time he went on he could order the beads on so the ventilators could do their work, but he could only do it when Dr. Vaughn wasn't present and the woman was a workaholic. Cora's periods with her youki suppressed were insufficient to assist her.

Kagome was taking all of her sponsors to task for the situation. She should have been allowed back for an emergency like Cora's down turn in health. Her instructions should have been followed to the letter in her own damn clinic. It almost would have been better for everyone if SIMHH had been left with just her staff in her forced absence.

The group of mentors and wealthy benefactors were not happy about her actions. They tried to tell her she was being rude, that her criticism was out of line, that they would retract sponsorship. Kagome had dared them to do it. She was saving lives. The one life lost was a result of doing what doctors had always done in regards to hanyou. Lorna had treated Cora like a youkai. A human doctor would have tried the opposite. Both had proven ineffective in the past and no one could argue that. Statistics didn't lie. What had always been done didn't work. Only a lunatic did the same thing over and over while expecting a different outcome.

It was true that Cora still might not have survived even with Kagome's prescribed regimen. She had an acute case of pneumonia that was debilitating in the extreme, but her chances of survival were vastly improved under Kagome's methods.

Kagome had demanded Dr. Vaughn be barred from the grounds permanently. She contacted the local youkai lord and demanded status as a separate sovereign entity. She wanted jurisdiction over her hospital. Anything short of murder and breaking laws was under her personal judgment. It meant she could evict anyone she damn well wanted for the health and safety of her patients. She was one step away from barring the board of people set on supposedly promoting her methods while refusing to believe that following them was better than trusting their own judgment to treat hanyou.

The meeting earlier this morning had finalized the status of the institute as being outside of territorial jurisdiction. There was paperwork filed with the United States government to achieve the same thing from the human politics in the area. Dr. Carter and Dr. Miriam had come in with Barley-san to try and talk her out of the ban she'd placed on Dr. Vaughn. It was their interference that had her in such a state right now.

Kagome took another deep breath and stopped her pacing in the middle of the room. Her uninjured hand reached up to rub against her temple trying to sooth the stress headache threatening to attack behind her eyes.

Fighting with the people who had helped her get this far had left her feeling incredibly isolated. Hakkaku had insisted on working longer hours at the clinic since their patients were suffering so much more after Cora's death. Ginta was the only one running out to the house now despite his incredibly busy schedule in the city. She hardly saw him. Rin was desperately spending as much time as she could with all the hanyou currently undergoing treatment at SIMHH. Even if they had more free time, Kagome was tied up with meetings and politics, fighting to gain full control of her clinic so that she could deny people like the Alferos from throwing their youki around her patients.

Kagome reached for the phone in her pocket and hit send.

"Mate," His warm voice filtered through the electronic connection. Whenever Kagome was feeling overwhelmed or in need of support, she had wished he was here. Sesshoumaru had grown to be her safe place and security net when pain and frustration threatened to eat her alive. She knew she could call on Nonny and Max. They would drop everything to come and stand behind her. They'd done it before and offered to do it again, but they came with the nosiness of two people who _knew_ all the intricacies of her relationship with Sesshoumaru.

Nonny would fight Kagome's legal battles with relish, but she would poke and prod into the rest of her life to root out what was missing. She would likely scold Kagome for not calling her mother more often or working harder to reconcile with her little brother and his wife. Max would growl at everybody in an old man, cantankerous-to-a-fault type of way that would have her smoothing down ruffled feathers more than she already was.

Her mother would come if called, but she would likely scold Kagome for attacking the very people who made the clinic possible, despite the fact that their arrogance had cost a small child's life. She would act like Kagome deserved to have the group of mentors and investors always second guessing everything Kagome did even if it hadn't proven effective before. To Kie, Kagome was still a gangly student learning the ropes of the world, not yet ready to suggest viable new solutions to old problems. It was irritating and hardly the type of support Kagome needed.

Her friends were busy fighting their own battles on different fronts. Battles that needed to be fought so that Kagome's efforts could reach farther and wider numbers of hanyou around the globe. Her local friends were working under the same people Kagome was taking to task and she refused to threaten their livelihood by dragging them into this confrontation.

There was only Sesshoumaru. "It is done," she declared solidly. He knew what she was referring to. He was almost more up to date on her schedule than the receptionist at the check-in counter.

"The youkai recognize your authority?" he inquired mildly. She knew he was only asking for assurance that they were both talking about the same event. Sesshoumaru was the one who had suggested she talk to Titus. Titus was the local ruling lord of youkai society. The substructure of youkai government within overall government was complex in this country.

"Yes," she answered. "He acknowledged the issues I've been having with certain youkai spiking their youki and the effects on my patients. Lord Titus has a nephew whose first three children were hanyou. They died years ago, but he told me he would encourage his family to attempt breeding again now that I was treating hanyou successfully. He promised me that even if other lords came to SIMHH, he would back me up in ejecting them if it became necessary."

"That is a strong sign of approval and powerful commitment to make," he acknowledged with a quiet sigh. Sesshoumaru hadn't been sleeping very well and she knew it had to do with the prolonged separation. Time was wearing on him and his ties with his birth pack were not close enough to counteract the side effects of their continued distance. It was now early morning in Japan. He should have just woken up, though she knew it was likely he'd never been to sleep. "You should be proud and very pleased."

She huffed as she remembered the morning's conversation. "Dr. Carter and Dr. Miriam tried to talk "sense" into me again."

"Insult your capabilities and intelligence some more, did they?" he asked, well knowing what buttons her mentors kept pushing. Kagome could put up with it as a student. She could put up with it when her theories were untested and lacked any proof of success. The death of a patient left her without the ability to forgive it any longer.

It didn't help that her upset had been renewed barely an hour after the well-meaning, if misled doctors had left. "Cora's little sister was admitted this morning," she blurted out. She heard him suck in a hasty, hissing breath. "Her parents didn't want to bring her here. They went to San Francisco to avoid SIMHH."

"This is the little female who has trouble keeping her skin hydrated?" the inu observed, his tone lifting on the end let her know he wanted her to confirm his knowledge. Sesshoumaru always tried to remind her that he listened when she talked. It was his way of proving how much he truly cared about Kagome. What was important to her was important to him.

"Yes," she responded. "Somehow she, and none of her other siblings, managed to catch the chicken pox." Mindy was adorable, two years old and her parents were not happy to have another child admitted to the institute. They were protective and combative. They trusted no one and their words were often insulting.

Kagome understood they were hurting. She fully comprehended they were anxious to avoid losing another child in the same place as Cora so soon after the elder's death. Grief, uneasiness, and terrible loss could make people react irrationally.

She knew all of that, but they were abusing the wrong people. And their actions were making Mindy frightened of her nurses and Kagome. The disease was bad enough to fight off without adding fear of the remedy to the mix. The poor child had thought she was dying when the suppression beads had started their work. She'd feared the baking soda bath they'd placed her in and she fought against the small dose of ibuprofen they'd tried to give her. The rash was packing heat and it was a struggle to get her to drink anything her parents didn't give her directly.

"When does Inuyasha graduate again?" Kagome asked rhetorically. She knew how much longer the wait was.

"Just say the word, mate," Sesshoumaru replied after a moment. "Demand that I come to you, and I will leave everything else behind."

Much as she wanted Sesshoumaru with her, she wouldn't say those words. Sesshoumaru needed Inuyasha around and if he left before Inuyasha was ready to come with, the two could not form a viable pack after that. Inuyasha would instinctively suffer for the abandonment and Sesshoumaru would suffer for the lack of pack. Kagome and Rin wouldn't be enough for a full-blooded inu, not after the last few years building healthy pack ties with his little brother. To encourage him to rip those ties would do more damage to Sesshoumaru than it would do her good.

"No," Kagome stated bluntly. "You stay. Don't come here without the pack, I won't hurt you just because I feel crappy and alone right now. I'll survive, it's temporary. Besides, I can't really afford to closet myself away with you while you work your hardest to impregnate me." She wasn't really solid on how she felt about that. On one hand it aroused her, the reality of sex in person without the interference of chemicals intrigued. One the other, it scared the crap out of her, their last interlude hadn't turned out so well and left her with emotional mental scars she was still trying to work through.

Her words inspired a chuckle from the inu and a rather big caress of his youki across very sensitive parts of her anatomy. "You are too good to me mate. Good to me and my accompanying pack. You will make an extraordinary alpha female," he complimented her.

"I'll be lousy at it," she scoffed. "I'm a workaholic whose time will always be focused on someone else's children."

"Perhaps," he allowed before continuing. "But you forget that those children are also your pack, marked and tended."

"I-"

"They are your paper cranes after all," he added gently. "Those children may have been birthed by someone else, they may have other parents to raise them, but you keep them alive and well. You will never entirely let go of their care and some day the children you tend will include ones of your own birthing. Rin is not neglected for your work. She is included probably more than most would think to do."

"But because I included her she experienced death far earlier than she should have," Kagome protested.

"Possibly," Sesshoumaru conceded, "But that is unlikely."

"What?"

"Youkai are violent and territorial, it is likely she would have experienced death in some form if she were part of a coyote pack. Did not your own brother suffer the death of a family member around Rin's age."

"I-yes," Kagome realized. There was no protecting children from death, it came when it would, claimed those who were due and any child that could claim family would eventually experience the loss of family. Nothing lived forever, not even youkai whose life span were vastly long. Sesshoumaru's grandfather was proof of that. The various youkai who died of radiation exposure after the tsunami were proof of that.

"You cannot protect her from life. You should not even attempt it, for if you do, how will she learn to live?" Sesshoumaru inquired softly. Abruptly he changed the subject after having made his point. "Perhaps you should rest, mate."

"I can't," Kagome protested. "Mindy's condition needs monitoring and Teddy just re-stabilized. Giselle is finally putting some weight back on, but her compromised health has left her exceptionally vulnerable to infection and Marta is _still_ having trouble calming down enough to eat."

"These are all important things," he began, "But not things that need your active attendance right now. Connor would not be your head nurse if you thought him incapable and Hakkaku has well learned what sorts of things need your immediate attention. Your staff is capable and sufficiently trained. A nap would not result in the death of any of your patients and might actually do them and you a great deal of good. You are still struggling to prevent your reiki from spiking past your shield."

"That's not a problem anymore," Kagome shook her head as she turned to face the cloudy view outside her office window. "I warded my office to keep energies in." It had come in handy for obstreperous youkai coming to fight with her and emotional outbursts of her own in response to them and the situation that had developed from ill-thought efforts to control her life.

"This Sesshoumaru wondered why your energy felt so faint," he commented.

"But you can still feel me," Kagome asked for assurance. Youkai mating bonds had unusual properties, but she'd tried to make sure her wards wouldn't block it and cause them both fatal injury.

"It is merely muffled, not so blocked as your "noisy" barrier," he replied carefully.

"I'm sorry if you don't like it, but I-"

"Need to protect your patients. This Sesshoumaru is cognizant of your motive." He was interrupting her a lot today, and normally it would irritate her. Today it just seemed to make her feel warm that he would interject to finish her thought or fight her self-deprecation. It was proof of a closeness and care that she suddenly realized she needed in her life and hadn't had since her grandmother was alive.

Kagome loved her mother, grandfather and brother, but their care was often too distracted to offer the sort of affection Sesshoumaru did. She knew they loved her, but their expectations for and of her often interfered with how they tried to convey it. Sesshoumaru's expectations were simple and reciprocal. He expected her to be herself the same as she expected of him. He expected her fidelity the same as he had offered. And he needed her to care the same as she needed him to.

Kagome liked to fancy he loved her and she was coming to admit that maybe she loved him too. It wasn't a sudden realization, but knowledge that was starting to grow on her. She wasn't ready yet to give words to her feelings, her therapist was working on it, but she was starting to acknowledge it and that was a big step for her.

"Take a nap mate," he repeated. "The rest will do you good."

"Hn," she replied impishly before saying her good byes. Her office had a futon stored in a side cabinet and his words made her realize that she was tired enough to rather need a nap. It might even help her to regain emotional equilibrium for a little while.


	50. Hole in the Sky

Oh wow, you guys are catching up to me fast! I guess I'd better get a move on writing where I'm at. This chapter, somebody manages to catch cold and somebody else nearly loses a family member. How the two events are connected is for you to find out!

Calendar: January

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Hole in the Sky**

Sesshoumaru blinked bleary eyes at the far wall of the main living space in his condo. Kikyou had pushed him there earlier this morning with a wad of blankets he shivered under despite the rather warm interior of the flat. Valiantly he tried to suppress a coughing sneeze with little success.

Sesshoumaru had caught the youkai equivalent of a cold. He hadn't been terribly surprised by the fact. The perpetual difficulty sleeping coupled with regular use of his natural youki left him vulnerable. Sleep was a youkai's way of replenishing his youki. His efforts to help his mate study years earlier had explained it all in excruciating detail he hated to recall now. He just couldn't remember the last time he'd been ill.

Being youkai meant that Sesshoumaru's natural body functions utilized his own youki, the energy released from his soul in addition to the energy extracted from his diet. Food alone was not enough to maintain healthy body in youkai, though it would keep him from death. In essence, the deficiency of youki had required his body reserve what little he had readily available for the more vital systems in his body, similar to the efforts of a mortal body faced with hypothermia. The effects were fairly predictable based on type of youkai.

In inu the symptoms were similar to an upper respiratory infection. His ears ached and rang. His sinuses pained him with a terrible pressure and congestion that gave him bloody noses from sneezing fits while diminishing his sense of smell. His throat was raw from the constant drainage, coughing, and even occasional vomiting, which was the worst of it to Sesshoumaru's mind. In other youkai, a lack of youki-usually a result of failing to allow a rest period in which to replenish reserves, like Sesshoumaru's current situation-the symptoms related to other senses. In birds known for their keen eyesight, their vision became limited. In bats that survived and navigated via the use of enhanced hearing, the ability to detect sound became terribly diminished.

Sesshoumaru had managed to pass it off as something inconsequential for the first couple days. Heightened fatigue was as much a symptom of not sleeping as it was of illness. Susceptibility to chill during winter months could hardly mean anything unusual. To shiver because of a frigid breeze is normal. And he hated to worry his mate.

He preferred to be her support rather than a source of concern. Sesshoumaru was the male, and while most gender roles had become fairly mutable in recent years, this was one role he'd claimed quite solidly. When she was stressed out, he listened to her problems and made suggestions when called for. When she was frustrated, he allowed her to vent before trying to make her laugh to get rid of whatever she was still holding on to. When she grieved he called in the cavalry to help her through. When she worried he let her rail at the universe as much as she wanted then asked the vague questions necessary to spur her into a thought path that might fix whatever worried her. It required the use of all his faculties and wit as his mate was complex and her problems were not common.

He couldn't do all those things if his head felt stuffed with cotton, his ears rang with pain in place of sound, and his mate avoided confiding in him in worry of stressing _his_ recovery. Sesshoumaru should have known his doctor mate was more than capable of detecting illness in a person even from a world away. When she allowed herself to use her reiki, she could sense every fluctuation in his youki. The continued depletion would be obvious to any member of his pack...if his pack had ever bothered to sense his healthy youki levels. He never was very good at hiding things from her anyway.

On the one hand, he would grudgingly admit the proof of her care made him feel great about their relationship. Sesshoumaru knew just how hard it was to pick up on nuances in the life of someone a world away. The life around you was always busy and more apparent. Activities demanded immediate attention to things closer to home making it difficult to collect the clues needed to know what was going on around someone so far distant. For him, Sesshoumaru managed it by remembering the very real fact that his home was where his mate and pup were. His attention was diverted from them by the members of his pack on his side of the world only.

Managing Inuyasha's mercurial temperament and their little pack's finances was mostly busy work for Sesshoumaru. A way of passing time more quickly until the pack could be united after Inuyasha's graduation. It exercised his skills minutely and gave a sense of satisfaction to fulfill the duties of alpha to their subpack.

They were all lucky that there were no bills due right now and that Inuyasha was so focused on his degree requirements he'd had little reason to find trouble. There were members of the sanctuary network that hadn't seen their most senior hanyou in weeks.

Sesshoumaru had been lousy at all of his usual tasks since his youki had failed to defend him from his current cold. He was lucky if he had the wherewithal to figure out what was going on around him most of the day. Phone calls with his mate were never so quiet before, now that he couldn't hear so well he had little to say and she was generally so focused on being a doctor the little personal conversations had evaporated. The little tricks he'd developed to focus on words in his semi-deafness didn't help Sesshoumaru when he couldn't see the words forming on his mate's lips.

On the other hand, she had chosen to inform his flat mates of his condition without consulting him first. Sesshoumaru may not have been the most effective doctor for himself. He might have been a little lax in his efforts to properly medicate the early symptoms of his cold, but he would still rather nurse his cold in private. Fussing gave him a bigger headache than his symptoms already did and his room was darker most of the day than the living room was. Plus, he'd been able to slowly work on some random projects in his room, even when he probably shouldn't have.

Wood created sawdust and he was already having trouble breathing. Finishing his metal projects required the use of chemicals he produced by using his youki. Using more of his youki while already in a depleted condition was hardly likely to aid in his healing, as depleting himself further might land him without a humanoid form for a time. Sesshoumaru hadn't cared as it had passed the time a little, even if every piece he worked on was probably ruined by his hazy vision, shaking hands, and trembling arms. There was very little Sesshoumaru had to pass the time with.

His eyes constantly watered making all quiet pastimes a chore. Reading was out of the question and they had no TV. Radios had never found entry into this space beyond the little mp3 players built into individual smart phones and likely would only have left him with terrible headaches in any case. Sheer physical misery made speech uncomfortable and the size of the apartment kept him from roaming much in restlessness. Not that he would get far without falling over anyway. Today had blessed him with an increased weakness that required he lean heavily on someone. It didn't help that Inuyasha and Kikyou were circling around Sesshoumaru like unwanted mother hens.

Being settled in the middle of their shared public space exposed him to the goings on of his two frenetic roommates. Kikyou's flitting about the condo in pursuit of her chores or searching for some article of lost clothing or checking on him or finding Inuyasha's keys left Sesshoumaru feeling dizzy. Inuyasha's loud demands for meals or keys left Sesshoumaru's head thundering the sound behind his eyes. Sneezing or coughing left his entire upper body lighting up with pain. Suppressing any of the above often took more energy than he could afford, though preventing more sneezing or coughing was a task he wouldn't give up on. Bloody noses were unpleasant and the scent of his own blood left his instincts on edge.

The best medicine he could take was sleep, but it was difficult to sleep when one felt they couldn't breath. Suggestions had been made about sleeping with his head raised higher to assist drainage, which hadn't worked. It had also been suggested that he sleep near a humidifier, but that had only left him feeling suffocated.

So far, all that worked was the set of youkai specific herbal teas his mate had mailed him. The steam cleared and widened his nasal passages while the herbs encouraged youki production. He suspected they were laced with a mild sedative since he always fell asleep shortly after drinking them and his mate had warned against drinking them too often. The down side was that his little naps never lasted long. Sesshoumaru would find himself gasping for breath in whatever dream his addled brain had concocted before his consciousness would surge to save him from death in his sleep.

He was already suffering through day seven of this illness with no promise of quick mending to be had and every promise of prolonging this blasted cold until April when Inuyasha would finally obtain his degree and they could all head for the mild weather and happy union with his mate and pup.

Right now, even with his instincts clamoring at him, all Sesshoumaru wanted to do was curl up beside his mate and bask in her physical warmth while she doctored him to better health. In the absence of that, he was limited to Kikyou and Inuyasha piling onto the couch every evening to crowd him while they read copies of Rin's favorite books to him. It was not a good substitute as far as he was concerned, but it was usually paired with a cup of that tea so he didn't have to suffer their closeness long. Closeness was a necessity as inu would draw youki off pack members during weakness in order to fight off contracted illness and establish a faster equilibrium. The pile up with Inuyasha was useful no matter how unpleasant.

The condo was quiet at present. This was usually a time he savored, when both his roommates were out about their business and the place was solely Sesshoumaru's for a few short hours. They weren't bad flatmates and he was used to living with them, certainly, but there had been more chances for them to get away from each other in Australia with the wide open country calling him out to visit Nonny and Maxwell-sensei. In Japan, there was just the constant presence of the Tokyo masses.

The Taishou estate was still barred to him. The Higurashi shrine and attached wilderness never took him beyond the scent of people. The Yoshida property was covered in the scent of the people who owned it and the wilderness it had once been was strictly tamed to serve the family business. Either place required an invitation and at least a temporary escort through the property. For a youkai accustomed to independence and solitude, civilization was crowding on him.

His pleasure with the absence of Kikyou and Inuyasha was terribly hampered by Sesshoumaru's illness. Being sick made enjoyment of the silence fairly difficult. It would be more apt to say he was grateful for the lessening of his headache in the hushed quiet of well insulated walls. It didn't make him feel better, just not worse.

Naturally something had to interrupt this brief blessing of hushed privacy.

The phone ringing from the arm of the couch was like a siren screaming in the collected silence.

Sesshoumaru glanced blearily at the annoying thing, debating whether to answer it. It was too early for his mate to call and her calls were always preceded by an influx of reiki washing over him and a tentative probe of Rin's youki. He very much believed the hesitance in Rin's efforts to touch his energy had more to do with the great distance she was stretching herself over than a lack of desire. Without the bond between himself and his mate, he doubted Rin would be able to reach at all as she piggy-backed on it.

The digital display took him two rings to make out, as much from his wavering vision as from his reluctance to answer it. His trouble hearing required he place the call on speaker and even then Sesshoumaru couldn't hear everything he wanted. It was particularly frustrating when talking with his pup. Canine communication often included sub-vocal growls that added a nuance to conversations that he wasn't able to catch. It was frustrating in the extreme since Rin resorted to her coyote form during their joint conversations more often than not.

How was he supposed to show her how much he cared and how well he listened when he couldn't hear everything she said? His pup excused him because he wasn't feeling well, but Sesshoumaru excused nothing.

Thankfully, it wasn't his mate or pup as surmised. Instead it was Nonny.

He talked to the cat and her mate once or twice a week, about the same rate in which he used to visit while apprenticed to Walter and Alma. He called Trish about as often, more often if the little girl called him. Sesshoumaru hadn't spoken to either since the third day of his cold. Neither should know he was ill unless his mate had communicated it to them. He didn't think she would do that though. Neither female could do anything to assist him in getting better. Knowing that would just make them fret needlessly.

He finally answered his phone on the fourth ring, right before it would have gone to voice mail. "Hello," the sound scratched its way out of his irritated throat. Listening was certainly a more comfortable activity than trying to speak, but even that was compromised by the sickness.

"Good grief, you sound terrible!" Nonny started from her end of the phone. "I hadn't heard you were ill."

"Cold." Sesshoumaru had mastered the art of single word communication. A wealth of information could be conveyed by the pacing of a single word and a regulated, if scratchy tone.

The cat let out a long sigh. "Okay, I know you don't feel well, but this is sort of an emergency. You need to call Trish."

"What?" he demanded in alarm. Nonny didn't usually tell him he needed to call Trish. Normally, he let Nonny know if he was going to. Sometimes the cat would let him know if Trish wasn't going to be available for a call because of a school event or social engagement. Often the former law professor would let him in on significant milestones he's missed and hadn't heard about from Trish herself. Never did the cat tell him to call the girl. It wasn't in her nature, this was serious.

"Walter had a stroke," she told him abruptly. "He fell and lay on the ground inside the workshop for a couple hours before Trish came home from school. Alma was running errands."

"He?" Sesshoumaru nearly croaked on his anxiety. Trish only had her grandparents. She still needed them for at least a few years yet.

"He'll recover, but it's going to be a slow process. Alma's spending a great deal of her time handling his hospital stay, bills and trying to figure out just how extensive the damage is going to be. Trish has been staying with us since Alma dropped her off before heading to the hospital after the paramedics picked him up from their home. She hasn't been home and hasn't seen Walter or Alma for two days," Nonny stopped short a moment before continuing. "She's shut down on us, Sesshoumaru. Trish stopped talking again. She's not even following Walter around like she used to."

"Shock," he replied abruptly. It was likely Trish was simply in shock. Her first instinct was to revert to silence in a situation that caused her stress. The threat of upsetting her new, good, stable life would distress her quite easily. As far as Sesshoumaru knew, Trish was still seeing counselors. Their main purpose was to assist the little girl's adjustment post whatever traumatic past she'd survived before coming to Alma and Walter.

Insecurities would be natural coming from such an environment into one that was so much better. Alma and Walter were not wealthy, they couldn't buy Trish everything she wanted, but Sesshoumaru was of the opinion Trish benefited more for it. Walter and Alma were older, they could not do all the physical things other parents did to bond with Trish. There were no games of catch or wild dancing for no reason. There were no attempts to chase the child around when she was feeling rambunctious or too full of energy of the type that would leave more average families flushed with pointless laughter, exhilarated by the exercise and fun. The elderly pair did not make quick decisions or sudden movements having learned through their years of life that better thought out choices and smoother movements better served their purposes and conserved their increasingly limited energy. There were things Trish would miss out on because of her guardians' ages but it was likely their more staid approach to activities was more appropriate for a child as nervous as Trish had been when brought into their care.

He couldn't imagine her finding a better home, and he doubted Trish could imagine it either. Not with the memory of the home she'd had before them. Sesshoumaru never pried into her past, in some ways he was certain he didn't want to know. Whatever Trish had suffered through had left its mark and assured she never took for granted the better environment she had been placed in now. Naturally, any threat to her placement with Alma and Walter would make her anxious.

"I don't think the shock should last _two days_," Nonny replied, correctly interpreting his one word sentiment. "True, it was traumatic to find him on the floor when she got home. And she was the one to call the paramedics _before_ Alma got home. As I understand it, he was unconscious when the ambulance took him in, but his vital signs beyond that were mostly normal."

Sesshoumaru wanted to berate her for dismissing what sort of effect that would have on a child, to see someone they loved lying prone on the floor unconscious. He remembered the stories his mate had imparted about her reaction when her father died and then her grandmother after that. He remembered the diminished, latent trauma threaded through the words as she related what her father had looked like prone and bloody in the hospital bed the last time she'd been allowed to see him. That Walter wasn't dead and hadn't died would only save Trish from remembering his prone form as her last memory of the old man after she saw him up and moving again.

Nonny continued to argue why Trish couldn't be in shock and Sesshoumaru missed some of her argument as he railed against the cat's inability to recognize the trauma the situation had caused the little girl.

Trish likely wouldn't recover from the situation until her world had been returned to normal. Not seeing Walter and Alma for two days wasn't normal. Staying with Nonny and Max was not normal. The last time Trish's routine and environment had been this disrupted it took months before the child would talk to anyone. Two days wasn't stretching the imagination if one bothered to really think about it.

The world had been upended for Trish and she had yet to find normal again. Nonny knew through the experience of a long life that everything would be all right, but Trish had no such reference. It was a little unreasonable to expect Trish to be absolutely fine just two days after Walter's collapse and before she had seen him awake and responsive.

Sesshoumaru wanted to lecture Nonny about being so ridiculously unreasonable about Trish's behavior. Instinct was pushing him to growl. If Sesshoumaru wasn't ill, he would let the sound escape him and give the cat the harangue he felt her insensitivity deserved. But growling hurt more than speaking. And speaking often triggered the urge to cough.

"Hush!" he croaked forcefully and struggled to subdue the tickle at the back of his throat. Sesshoumaru refused to let his physical condition to interrupt what was likely to be an incredibly short tirade. "Trish is Trish! Let her be!" and he lost the battle not to cough.

Sesshoumaru had learned to hate coughing as it never ended quickly enough. One spontaneous effort to clear his upper esophagus inevitably spawn more until he was hacking so hard it threatened to bruise a rib. Eventually, he managed to find the end of the fit. "Trish is fine," he finished weakly.

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. "If you say so," Nonny finally conceded. "I can't believe you told me to hush, you arrogant pup," she continued quietly after a moment. "You're probably right," she hummed. "Trish is Trish and she's been silent before. I'll worry if she continues her silence after returning to Walter and Alma." The cat sighed into the phone. "I still think you should call her, she needs to know you're supporting her, though I don't know how comforting that will be if you cough like that in her ear. You're really ill aren't you?"

Sesshoumaru refused to answer. It was a stupid question, one that had already been more than sufficiently answered by both words and actions. What, did she want him to produce an ejected lung before his coughing fit would be enough proof of his miserable condition?

Still, the cat had a point. In times of stress it was important to know friends were ready and waiting to catch and carry you through. Trish was in need of a call, Sesshoumaru would have to orchestrate it somehow.

"I also needed to call you on behalf of Alma and Walter," Nonny added after an empty pause. "The paper work has finally been finalized and with recent events Alma wanted me to give you a heads up. You've been stipulated as Trish's guardian in their will."

"What!" the word exploded out of him with the full force of the coughing sneeze he'd been fighting.

Nonny waited for the fit to end. "They both decided it and asked me to make sure it was legally concrete even if Trish would have to leave the country to live with you. You are the one she trusts the most, you always have her best interests at heart and your mate is a doctor. Your pack treats her as a close member already. There's nobody in their family that can offer Trish so much. Too many hold close ties with the child's parents, even incarcerated as they are. Then there's the fact that her parents won't always be in jail. It's better for her if she's nowhere they can reach her when it happens."

"When?" came the desperate question.

"Oh they're not expected to make parole for another five to ten years," was her reply. "I think there are plans to have Trish study abroad during high school and college. That's if Alma and Walter live that long. There's no set date of expiration on humans, sometimes they live far longer than any one expects them too. But with Walter's stroke, it makes it more likely they won't live long enough to assist Trish in that direction." There was a long pause that made Sesshoumaru wish his ears were working better. He didn't know why the cat would stop there, he couldn't tell if she was simply taking a drink of water for a parched throat or if she swallowing strong emotion. These were nuances he missed being able to detect and interpret. "We would have offered to allow Trish to live with us indefinitely when the time came, but seclusion isn't the type of life a young person wants or needs forever. Trish should be out in the world without fear and unfortunately that most likely requires she leave the country."

Sesshoumaru didn't know Trish's parents. He didn't know why the vast area of the island continent wasn't enough to house both child and parents separately with safety. He wouldn't argue geography with those who likely knew more of the situation. It was food for thought, certainly.

The pensive inu let out a controlled, hissing breath to convey his continued involvement in the mostly one-sided conversation. Nonny communicated a few more concerns before letting him alone with the emptiness of the condo to supposedly find rest. How she could believe Sesshoumaru would find rest after the bombs she'd dropped, he would never be able to fathom. Such would have kept him from rest even without the addition of his various ailments.

There was one thing he completely agreed with the cat on. He needed to call Trish. The little girl needed the reassurance that, despite distance and emergency, he was still supporting her. His pack was still there for her. Besides, Sesshoumaru was due for a talk with the little female.

The problem that kept running through his addled brain without finding a solution, was his difficulty speaking. Sesshoumaru was truly pained by the effort to force words out of his mouth. He sounded terrible when he did talk, and that wasn't even taking into consideration the fact that nearly every effort to talk ended in a coughing fit. He did not think Trish would find it very comforting to hear him struggling to breath through it.

He was still deliberating the problem when Kikyou came home as the solution. Sesshoumaru struggled to divest himself of the constricting blankets and capture her attention. The woman was always distracted when she entered, making a beeline for one destination or another before remembering him on the couch.

She noticed him right away when she heard him collapse to the floor with a loud thud. Sesshoumaru laid there frustrated at his impotence in the face of yet another problem.

"Sesshoumaru, are you all right?" Kikyou asked as she struggled to lift the larger petulant male back onto the couch. Her hands fluttered over his forehead and cheeks as she checked his temperature and studied his glassy eyes. Sesshoumaru shoved his phone at her repeatedly trying to draw her attention away from her fussing. "Would you sit still and let me check you over? How did you wind up on the floor?"

Sesshoumaru barely refrained from rolling his eyes before shoving the phone at her again, "Call Trish!"

"I don't need your phone to call Trish, I have her number too," Kikyou pushed down the hand holding his phone out. "And I talked to her three days ago, she was fine."

"Call Trish!" he lifted his lowered arm again, angry at his own weakness. If Sesshoumaru wasn't so weak, Kikyou would never be able to shove his arm out of her way in the first place. When she went to push his arm away again, he resorted to pleading. It bruised his pride to be reduced to such instead of being able to explain it all or make the call himself, but Trish needed reassurance and that was more important than his temporarily reduced ego. "Please!"

"Is something wrong with Trish?" Kikyou asked as she finally grasped his urgency. Instead of straining his voice further, Sesshoumaru pushed the phone at her with more insistently. The woman condescended to take it from him and search out the child's number to make the call.

It rang a few times, more times than usual before the call connected to silence on the other end. "Trish? Trish it's Kiki," Kikyou asked, failing to conceal her growing concern. "Trish are you there? Did something happen?" The quiet continued. Kikyou quickly caught on when Sesshoumaru sent her a pointed look. "Trish, I don't know what happened. I don't know why you're not speaking, I think maybe Sesshoumaru knows and that's why he had me call. He'd call himself, but he's been ill for the past few days and talking is painful. We want you to know that we're here for you." she glanced at the anxious inu listening in on the conversation. "It may not feel like it, it may not seem like it, but we're here whenever you need us and we'll be waiting for you to talk when you're ready. Sesshoumaru may not be able to talk right now, but he'll do his best to listen. So will I or Inuyasha whenever you're ready. We won't pry, we won't push. We want you to be comfortable. I wish we could fly to you, and hold you tight, but all we can do is send you hugs and promise to listen whenever you're ready to talk. We love you Trish and we're worried for you. Please remember that."

The other end of the line was quiet for a few more minutes before Kikyou heard the muffled sound of crying. "It's all right Trish, you cry if you feel the need. Nobody is ever wrong for crying when it's real," Kikyou added as she settled next to Sesshoumaru on the couch. It hurt to listen, but neither of them would hang up. Trish was family.


	51. Small Miracles

A sad thing happened this week. One of my favorite authors passed on, and while I still haven't read every book he'd written yet, it's sad to know there will be no more to come when I do. Rest well, Sir Terry Pratchett.

Moving on from the past and to the near future, my birthday is coming up on Monday. I'm happy to say I'm not working that day (we don't work Mondays in my department) so I plan to enjoy the time off. I may go visit some friends, eat out twice in one day and spend a little time with Sesshoumaru and Kagome (or one of my favorite Discworld novels)

Calendar: February

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Small Miracles**

Kagome discreetly watched the youkai male growing increasingly aggravated by the check-in desk. She'd never seen him before and she was debating exercising her new power to evict recalcitrant visitors.

Kelly had been an amazingly beneficial hire when Kagome had first been looking to fill the receptionist position. You wouldn't know it on first hire or first meeting, Kelly's various idiosyncrasies often left people wondering just how she managed to get anything done without scaring people off. She came across as inept but so incredibly innocent and nice that most everyone felt guilty getting mad at her.

It was a smoke screen so amazingly complex that most visitors never realized they'd been played, no matter how many visits they made for whatever duration of time. Kagome hadn't figured out until Kelly had been at SIMHH a year and the efficiency reports came in. She'd expected a less than stunning report on the receptionist and been floored by the reality that her front desk was out performing every other section of the Institute.

After that, Kagome began to pay a little more attention. Kelly was a marvel. She typically handled the more impatient youkai and human couples in ways uniquely designed to help keep them both occupied and mostly calm. If they were forced to wait, she kept them in the waiting room through subtle means the worried and distraught or angry and demanding never even noticed.

Even now, with the tall youkai male all but ready to tear his short gray hair out, Kelly was frowning so tearfully that the male failed to feel the anger that normally accompanied such frustration. His jaw was tight, his eyes incredulous, and his hands tense, but his youki remained a tame pool of energy gathered tight against himself.

Kagome was hyper-vigilant against youki spikes. She'd lost another patient for erratic energy releases three days ago. Youkai would only get one warning from here on out before they'd be ejected and barred from re-entry. Her patients usually required one parent be present and if the youkai part of the family couldn't be trusted to remain moderately calm, Kagome felt no guilt in removing them. Not anymore.

There were many benefits to being a medical facility in the middle of nowhere. There was less pollution, greater privacy, and better control for who gets in with no other crowds to distract anyone guarding the doors. There were also downsides, and one of them was that they were the only medical facility in the area. All medical emergencies were shipped to SIMHH for stabilizing before transfer by helicopter into the city.

Kagome didn't begrudge this fact normally. Most emergencies this far out were simple enough to handle and rare. Since opening the doors, she'd tended the occasional stroke victim and heart attack. There had been one sports incident that brought her a matching pair of adolescent broken limbs and one kid had somehow shot _himself_ with a crossbow. She didn't mind honest accidents and while three elderly patients hadn't survived long enough for the chopper transfer, their deaths had been peaceful enough.

Then they'd called in a medical emergency for two idiot teenagers playing chicken with some heavy duty farm equipment. Stupidity was a disease running rampant in the world today. It had unfortunately proven fatal at the scene for one youkai male running too high on masculine pride and hormones. His rival made it to her emergency room with severe lacerations, broken bones, blood pouring from every orifice in his head, and an extremely low BP. From the blood the youkai boy had already lost by the time he reached the table, it was chancy he'd last long enough for the helicopter to arrive with the EMTs from San Francisco. Kagome tried her best anyway, Connor by her side and Hakkaku working up the family info to see if any of them could donate blood for their boy.

Their little institute had no reason to keep blood on site. Youkai blood didn't keep so well in any case.

Kagome had done her best to protect all her other patients by shielding their individual rooms, building up the defenses on each one carefully and invisibly everyday they retained residence at SIMHH. She'd thought they would all be safe despite the gathering of youkai anxiously awaiting news about the little idiot. All her hanyou were unstable. Teddy had barely survived the last unruly youkai visitor. Giselle was still recovering from her sudden growth spurt. Calpurnia's health was precarious with her asthmatic breathing issues. Polly had been rescued from an abusive home and couldn't afford the added stress of angry energies setting off a panic attack. Polly had three broken ribs, a panic attack would aggravate them and Marta still couldn't seem to relax enough to eat very much.

Kagome focused her attention on trying to find and stop all the bleeding. Kelly had called San Francisco and asked a surgeon come in on the chopper instead of just the EMTs. The secret miko was grateful when Dr. Jarvis arrived. While Kagome was proficient in emergency medicine, this patient needed more and he wouldn't be stable enough to transport to where he could get it. They worked for hours, until hands were cramped and feet were numb. They worked beyond even the moment it became apparent they were losing the battle. Dr. Jarvis made the pronouncement and Kagome was required to inform the family.

Thirteen full-blooded youkai had been there to receive the news, but Kagome had been certain her patients would be fine in their shielded rooms. It would take a directed flare of youki to make it a problem. They all should have been safe.

Only, one of them hadn't been in their assigned room. Medical tests and equipment along with some therapies required more space than could be found in the patient rooms. Physical therapy had a room of its own and a specialist retained to handle the patients Kagome felt could benefit most from it. Like Giselle.

Giselle had needed to build up strength in the thin, rapidly grown bones. Her body needed to learn how to move with limbs suddenly longer than she was used to. The half Tsessebe (sess'uh bee) needed to be reminded that her suddenly increased height wasn't something to be feared. The poor girl needed to relearn how to walk and run and move. She'd needed to build up the muscles around the bones in carefully crafted and monitored exercises.

Giselle's parents had wanted to take her home to Africa. The only thing they'd brought her in for was seemingly fixed, Giselle now looked a lot closer to her chronological age. In their eyes she was fixed, never mind brittle bones and new heart problems. Kagome would rather the little girl still look younger than she should than develop these new problems to look "appropriate" for her age.

Kagome had fought with Giselle's parents to keep her at SIMHH. The growth spurt had done damage to Giselle's cardiovascular system. The suddenly taller teen's heart was straining to send the needed fuel and oxygen to every part of a body nearly twice the size of former days. Travel was risky in such condition. Any sudden shock or spurt of fear could end the teenager. And a sudden spike in youki from mourning youkai had killed her _in_ Kagome's care.

Looking back, Kagome was trying not to second guess herself. Flying and pressure change was bad enough but Giselle had been excited to fly here. The activity was still new enough to the young female to cause undue agitation to her fragile system.

Yesterday's session with Kagome's therapist had been intense with grief, expressions of self-doubt, and guilt. Kagome had been exhausted, emotionally wrung out by the end of it. All she'd wanted was to crawl into a tiny ball in some corner of her office and hide from the light of day. But she was a mom and needed to help Rin get through it too.

Katarin did not suffer death in her territory well. Kagome had been obliged to take her pup and return to their house the first night so the coyote could howl out her grief under the moon and stars without disturbing patients and staff who were also grieving. Despite the chill of February, they slept outdoors. Rin was fine with her coat of fur, but Kagome had shivered resolutely next to her mourning pup. They'd been living out of Kagome's office since then. Hopefully, Rin would venture beyond the brightly lit room to commiserate with the patients that were her friends.

Teddy missed his coyote friend and had been close with Giselle. The two could help each other get through the loss. The other patients knew each other well and were excited to share news that would take their minds off the sadness choking the cheerfulness from the air.

Polly had been introduced to her social worker and was excited about their promises to place her in a family in town so that she would always be local to the institute. Calpurnia's mother had found out she was pregnant and the half lemur was hoping to enlist Rin in an plan to have the new baby named after Giselle.

But if Katarin wasn't ready for any or all these plans, Kagome wasn't going to push her yet. The mother was going to wait until Rin's regular grief counseling session tomorrow to make any plans about how to handle it. Pre-school was an option come fall, though Kagome was leaning more towards letting Rin partake of the tutors the clinic was looking into for the benefit of her long term patients. Teddy was old enough for school and most of her other patients wound up sticking around long enough to benefit from academic help to keep them abreast of the topics expected of their individual age groups.

Polly would probably need it the most, as she was around ten and had never been to school that Kagome could discern. Thankfully that was criminal enough to guarantee the sweet half bat would never return to the home she'd been rescued from.

Kagome returned her attention to Kelly and the strange, steely-eyed male whose claws had apparently dug deep enough to leave his knuckles tension white. Still he maintained his youki, kept it tight to his body despite the swirls of anxiety and frustration she could detect in it.

The young doctor didn't know why she'd been drawn to waste her time eavesdropping. The clinic was full of reasons why her time was at a premium. Something about the conversation at the front desk impelled her to stay put. Maybe it was the fact she'd never seen the male before. Perhaps it was the way he tried so hard to keep his youki from spiking too far from his person.

His behavior was odd, like he was doing absolutely all he could to remain on the premises. His tone spoke of mild desperation, odd to be found among the random visitors that would drop by.

There were no emergency patients in house right now. None were expected in the next short while. She knew all the parents to her patients. Visits from extended family were rare and always accompanied by a patient parent or designated guardian, like Cleo for Teddy or Polly's social worker.

Occasionally they'd get a reporter from the local town trying to dig up dirt or scandal. One undercover youkai had tried to get in after they'd received sovereignty from Titus. The group that one worked for were convinced she was killing babies and had somehow be-spelled the lord to grant Kagome the clout she'd been granted. Another time, a government stooge had attempted to infiltrate the institute under the guise of a nurse.

All had been weeded out and caught at the door. The youkai had been ejected completely and reported to Titus. The humans had been turned over to local police.

This guy didn't seem to fit in with the rest. He wasn't trying to be furtive, his argument with Kelly was too public for that. He wasn't trying to expose SIMHH as abusers or killers, dishonest and evil. He just kept insisting that his child was on the premises while Kelly asked for a name he couldn't or wouldn't give. The pair were at an impasse. But Kelly wasn't giving up. Kelly could be stubborn like that sometimes. She should have called Kagome or Connor to take care of the male fifteen minutes ago.

Kagome sighed before lifting the file in her hands and briskly stepping toward the desk. Kelly was responsible for their current filing system and Kagome had just finished collecting basic stats on Teddy.

They were going to try to keep track of daily stats electronically from day to day. It was Kelly's suggestion and as such Kelly had volunteered to enter the data and set up the tracking program before filing the hard copies of the paperwork in Teddy's patient history. Such data was sensitive and required a certain level of security be attached to it.

"Kelly, please take care of this," Kagome called to her clever receptionist. "I'll do another work up this evening before leaving. I hope to have the night shift do another work up while he's asleep."

"Do you want them all in the same tracking program or divided by time of day?" Kelly asked briskly. "I can do both."

"Try both, if we can find an underlying pattern over all or based on specific times of day we might be better able to judge how to help him establish a proper balance," Kagome smiled at Kelly before turning to the youkai male that strangely hadn't exploded at the doctor's interruption. On closer look, Kagome had a better understanding why she'd been drawn to listen and then act. "Dr. Higurashi," she held out her hand personably.

"Luka Matteo," came the deep baritone. The gray haired male didn't reach out for the hand that had been offered which wasn't uncommon among older youkai. "Maybe you can help me. This young lady has tried, but we seem to be coming from different worlds."

"This gentleman believes he is related to one of the children currently in residence, but doesn't know a name for me to reference," Kelly informed Kagome. "I've informed him that without a name or the guardian of any specific patient we cannot allow him any further on to the premises."

"That is a problem," Kagome acknowledged Kelly's words. Her tone was unassuming, trying not to sound dismissive or more knowledgeable about the situation than the two caught in it.

"And I'm telling you, the kid is my flesh and blood," Luka insisted. "I should be able to see the fruit of my loins. It's not right to deny a father the right to see his off spring."

"If you were the father of one of our patients, shouldn't you already know their name?" Kelly asked in counterfeit confusion. Kagome only knew she was faking _because_ the yearly review had proved there was very little that confused Kelly. Playing obtuse helped her block snoops without incurring too much wrath. It usually made it easier to boot out the sneaks and spies that would do harm to the patients and the institute at large.

Reporters weren't concerned with telling the truth impartially. They always wanted to spin it so that it would sell the most copies, stir the most attention. Even the ones who spouted the righteous line about the people deserving or needing to know, would slant their presentation of the truth. And quite frankly, sometimes the nameless masses didn't need to know things that had nothing to do with them.

Mr. Matteo was a different matter. Kagome had been hoping to see him in the institute for weeks. "I can handle this Kelly. Mr. Matteo, if you would follow me to my office," Kagome gestured with her hand in the correct direction. There was no need to keep him in the lobby. Her office had stronger shields on it and there was unlikely to be any patients passing through to be effected by a badly timed energy spike. He wouldn't be leaving and Kagome didn't want him to go. Her office was off the reception area, so he wouldn't be able to break away from her and hunt through the institute in search of the child in queston.

She politely ushered the youkai past the open door before quietly closing it behind them with a last glance and nod to Kelly to signal that the situation was in hand. "Would you care for something to drink, Mr. Matteo?" Kagome asked as she glanced around the office for Rin. If the Coyote cub was still present, she would have to oust her gently from the room, but the room appeared vacant. She hoped the mourning child had sought out companionship with Teddy.

"I'm fine," the male answered, refusing the offer of beverage negligently and ran a hand down his face, stopping to massage his right temple. "And please, call me Luka."

Kagome smiled blandly before rounding the edge of her desk, motioning for Luka to take a seat before settling into her own with concealed relief. "Are you well, Mr. Matteo?"

"I'd really prefer it if you'd call me Luka," he grumbled before addressing her inquiry. "It's been a rough week."

"If you are certain, we are capable of doctoring a health problem if there is a need. Though if it is merely stress after a long week, I can sympathize and commend you for choosing to forgo unnecessary medication," Kagome replied gently. Everybody had their days and weeks where they wished there was no cause to get out of bed. "And I prefer to maintain professional distance with the various individuals I meet here at the Institute. It makes it easier to give advice with certainty that my suggestions will be duly considered." A number of the males that came through were eager for familiarity with her. The reporters thought they could seduce something scandalous out of her, or cause a little scandal themselves. The spies hoped to charm secrets and skeletons from her lips or create a little shadow to cast over her. Extended families and unmated males generally did it for similar if more short-sighted reasons.

After the last lascivious proposal, Sesshoumaru had sent her a wedding band to wear. Despite the visible mark of commitment, Kagome had learned that lusty eyes only saw what they cared to see. They saw she was attractive and not obviously protected by a male partner, therefore she must be available.

Besides, it helped the doctor/parent relationship to adhere to some level of formality. She wasn't always going to be on their side. Her job was to find a way to keep or restore health to her patients. She was always on that side. It was easier for parents to understand that when they weren't coming from the emotional place of friendship which incorporated doubt.

Such practices were the reason Luka Matteo was in California right now with the knowledge that he had sired a child at all. June had been reluctant to notify both fathers to her babies. She insisted that one-night stands were not supposed to recur. Kagome could see that point of view, if nothing else came of it than one night of intimacy. But June had birthed twins. She was forever connected to at least those two males.

"Now, would you care to explain your situation to me in detail?" Kagome prompted the male settled in front of her. She wanted to know what he knew before proceeding. "I want to make certain I fully understand the problem."

He blinked bright yellow eyes at her before releasing a long sigh. "I received a phone call from a one time lover. I was informed that she had conceived from our one night liaison and birthed a halfer." Kagome very carefully refrained from correcting his terminology, much as she hated the vagueness and negativity of the term. It was better to hold off on discussions about the hidden connotations of vocabulary. "The child wasn't doing well and it was suggested that my presence might offer some improvement to the situation."

Kagome was far ahead of him so far. She had made the suggestion to June that Marta and Bridgit's respective fathers might help to settle the babes. Marta needed something to help calm her down as the constant anxiety kept her fretting far past the time when she should sleep and prevented the little half mouse from eating enough to support natural health and growth. Most full youkai infants leeched youki from their parents through their early years. Beyond the first year, they derived identity and established comfort zones based on the youki around them.

It had never been documented if hanyou did the same, but none of her prior patients had been tested with the absence of a youkai parent. Most couples who produced hanyou were mated and tacitly agreeing to face the roller coaster of hanyou parenting together. That didn't mean hanyou couldn't be born of couples who weren't planning to stay together as explicitly proven my June and her twins.

It couldn't hurt Marta to have her father around. Having a youki presence around that shared inherent similarities to her own could only soothe her and hopefully allow the infant to find a better life rhythm for sleep and feeding. The poor thing wasn't nearly starving to death, but neither was she healthy. Kagome worried that if they didn't get her settled and in the habit of eating regularly, Marta would be plagued with problems for the rest of her life.

"I never thought it could happen," Luka babbled on, stress and likely a lack of sleep loosening his tongue in the presence of the unassuming doctor. "I was ill as a child and told I would never sire young as a consequence."

Kagome wondered which illness he'd survived. Every species had some disease or illness that could be survived but unduly effected virility or fertility. In humans, the Mumps had been the most common before vaccinations had all but ended the problem. There were some that were blanket diseases effecting all youkai and some specific to each breed. She wasn't really interested in his personal medical history, but she made a mental note to go back over the possibilities in case any of her patients ever presented the symptoms.

To her knowledge there had never been studies on how fertile hanyou were. The significant statistics to get past at the moment were the child mortality rates. But someday, there would be interest and time for a new problem, and most kids grew up to want families of their own.

"I never thought I would breed with a human," Luka's words were empty of hidden meaning. There was no scorn lacing the last word, just absent-minded truth. Many youkai were ignorant of the statistics concerning the cross-fertility of humans and youkai, especially among mammalian breeds like neko, inu, and nezumi. Luka was the last and his doctor or whoever had decreed the young Mr. Matteo in his faraway youth incapable of breeding likely wasn't aware or couldn't conceive of the possibility. It wasn't too long ago that most parts of the world were violently against multi-speciel relationships. Hanyou were even rarer as recent as a century ago.

"Most ultimate authorities now recognize that cross-fertility between youkai and humans is substantially higher than within the breed of either, provided the youkai is warm-blooded and of a compatible breed. Humans only prove deficient in breeding with reptiles and avians. And that drop is only such when compared to pure human breeding. The cross-fertility still out paces pure avian and reptile rates," Kagome informed him. "This is only recent findings as statistics and studies have only been completed on the subject in the last few decades."

"You mean I could have been breeding children all along provided my partner was human?" Luka stared at her in surprise. He leaned forward in a type of eager hope Kagome felt compelled to temper.

"While you could produce a number of children with the assistance of the right partner, having hanyou children offers its own challenges," Kagome cautioned him. "I'm unfamiliar with the specifics of your medical history. For all I know, you really could have issues siring children with any female and the one you did have was just a fluke. Either way, I believe you might benefit from a visit to your primary physician for examination. There have been many breakthroughs in all branches of medicine that might offer a wider array of options than you were previously given."

He leaned back with a thoughtful nod. "I'll think about it, but for now..."

"For now, I happen to be fully aware of who it is you are here to see," Kagome admitted mildly. "I am not authorized to divulge any patient information without permission from the child's guardian."

"But I'm the father!" came the frustrated outburst. The spike in youki was still well within the allowed ranges for SIMHH. It was hardly a spike at all. If Kagome hadn't been watching for it, she likely would have missed it.

Some of the older youkai got that way, especially if they weren't used to positions of dominance. Kagome was given to understand Luka Matteo was a playwright from New York and that he seemingly lived a solitary existence. Living alone kept Mr. Matteo from needing to assert his dominance over anything. Right now, it meant he was her most well-mannered, frustrated visitor in history. What that would mean for raising Marta was completely unfathomable. The stress and frustrations associated with child-rearing brought out the strangest things in people.

"I'm sorry to be rude, but we are legally required to collect more information than just your word," Kagome pointed out. "Try to think about this from the inside perspective. Would you want us to trust some stranger you don't know enough to give them access to your child without consulting you first?"

"But I'm..." began the protest that ended weakly without completion.

"We are legally obligated to consult with every patient's guardian or parent about who will be allowed to visit. We have to do the same for every retained specialist we call in, every volunteer group, and every family member," Kagome pointed out. Some parents had been very open in letting consultations with doctors and specialists on board while others had been more selective, demanding reasoning and second opinion for each person called in. "The only time we might supersede that rule is in cases of emergency transfer from one institution to another." Then it was usually so fast a decision and transfer that there wasn't time to ask for permission. Luckily, none of her principle patients had required transfer from SIMHH, just the occasional local situation. "However, if you are prepared to wait until your child's mother comes in, we can fix this problem today."

"I shouldn't have to wait," he grumbled petulantly. "I was told I was needed to make my child well. The babe is ailing while we sit here and..."

Kagome cut him off patiently. "The child's situation isn't acute so much as chronic."

"And that makes waiting better than ending the pain immediately?" He demanded quite vehemently.

Kagome pointedly refrained from commenting. She hated having to let Marta's situation linger, but she was legally barred from letting Luka anywhere near the little girl he didn't even know as a girl. All of this could have been avoided if he had approached June before coming to SIMHH. Then he could have been introduced to Marta immediately upon arrival without all of this frustration.

"Well? Are you going to answer?" came the petulant question. He would start accusing her of prolonging Marta's torment in a minute.

Kagome sat back and steepled her fingers in front of her. If he wasn't going to be polite any more, she would allow him to have his fit without any more fuel added from trying to fight it.

And still his youki roiled strongly, but closely to his person. Even here he was keeping the energy under wraps. Kagome was impressed.

Before Luka could work himself up to accusations and yelling, Kelly beeped Kagome's phone from the reception desk. "Doctor, Ms. Whittaker is here with a Mr. Janstrip."

Kagome's brow creased in confusion. Ms. Whittaker was June, who came in at least twice a day to attempt feeding Marta and pump breast milk if she was unsuccessful. Bridgit was usually her only company as the half cat was too young to spend much time separated from her mother. The secret miko could only assume that "Mr. Janstrip" was the other father as she knew all of June's professional contacts. "Please send them to my office, Kelly," She told the receptionist mildly. "Your luck must be very good, Mr. Matteo," Kagome gently told Luka. "It appears your wait will not be that long after all."

A knock preceded the entry of June and the youkai cat that had fathered Bridgit. "Hey, Dr. H." the young woman cheerfully greeted Kagome. The semi-athletic female crossed the room to drop her overlarge diaper bag into the seat unoccupied by Luka Matteo before quickly turning to extract Bridgit from the red headed male trailing behind her. "This is Eddy Janstrip, a director from Hollywood," she smirked at Kagome as if the doctor cared about his profession. "He's Bridgit's father."

"Mr. Janstrip," Kagome nodded from the other side of her desk as the front had become suddenly over crowded and there was a fight brewing. "Ms. Whittaker it appears that you have yet another visitor today, as Mr. Matteo arrived to await you a little over an hour ago."

"Luka!" June squealed and rushed to hug him with one arm as the other held her half cat. Bridgit had been cleared to go home with June about a month earlier. "I'm so glad you came. Marta will do much better with you here. She's so little and precious! You'll love her!"

Luka quietly eyed the ruddy head leaned against the opposite shoulder as June. "Two?"

"Heh yeah," June's smile turned bashful. "I surprised everybody by having twins clearly from two different youkai. "

"It was certainly unexpected," Kagome agreed mildly.

"What are you doing in here?" June's expression turned confused.

"I am not allowed to visit until I am cleared by you," came the rather frustrated answer.

"Oh," June seemed chagrined, "I suppose I should have known that. Dr. H.'s is real protective of her patients. We just lost one because some youkai spiked their energy at the wrong time."

"That's what the warning sign is for?" Luka turned his yellow eyes to Kagome.

"It is there for a reason, and its warning should be taken seriously," the doctor answered.

"What warning?" Eddy asked as he reached to regain custody of his daughter.

"I can show you, if Dr. H. will take Luka back to see Marta?" June glanced back at Kagome who nodded acceptance. "Go with Dr. H., Luka. Marta will just adore meeting you!"

The kinetic woman and entourage exited in the office allowing Kagome to show Luka to the room Marta was being kept in. "I don't know if I can put up with that full time," Luka muttered. "Is she always so?"

"Energetic?" Kagome asked. "She tries to be. I fear Marta's prolonged stay is wearing on her. Bridgit is not particularly pleased to be away from her sister this much and does not sleep so well as she did here, but there was no medical reason to keep her longer."

"But there is for my daughter?"

"We suffered a death in the institute shortly after Marta and Bridgit were born. All of my patients were unduly effected by the spiking youki from the youkai parent of that particular hanyou. Marta has not fully recovered. I have theorized that because her youkai half is not a more aggressive breed she reacted to the associated energies with anxiety sufficient to make sleep and eating difficult," Kagome explained mildly as they entered Marta's room. She stopped talking as the youkai male approached the crib and reached down to meet his daughter. "Would you like to hold her?"

Luka's yellow eyes glanced up quickly, dropping tears of awe as he focused on her and the question she asked. He nodded thoughtfully, so she scooted a chair closer to the crib. "Sit," she urged as she bent to lift the tiny half mouse from the sheets tucked around her. There was a sudden uptick in the constant whimpers before Kagome settled the infant in Luka's folded arms. Carefully she arranged his hands around the bundle cradled to his chest until she was satisfied with Marta's safety. "Let her feel your youki. It is hoped that feeling you near will offer enough reassurance to ease her fretting."

Luka never looked up from the tiny face that opened curious, unfocused yellow eyes to stare back at him. Slowly the whimpers quieted and the exhausted baby calmed.

Kagome smiled before offering Luka a pre-made bottle of June's breast milk. "See if you can get her to eat before she falls asleep." The youkai grabbed the small bottle and with some gentle coaching managed to feed and burp his baby before the girl fell asleep peacefully in his arms. Kagome ran a hand over the short gray fuzz so like Luka's before hearing June coming down the hall. That Marta continued to sleep despite the noise was a blessing and a miracle.

Luka glanced up from the sleeping babe to glare at the doctor sternly. "Just so you know, I'm not leaving until my daughter does."

"So long as June take no issue with it, I see no reason you can't," Kagome shrugged, collapsing the argument before it could start. "The only reason June doesn't stay is because Bridgit no longer needs to."

"I'm her father!"

"Then be a father and do what needs to be done for Marta," Kagome again shrugged. "June is her mother and her guardian. You will have to work things out with her. I am not a judge, jury or relationship counselor. I'm just Marta's doctor. I advised what I thought would be best for Marta. The rest is up to you."

He blinked, his mouth agape and yellow eyes incredulous. "You don't care?"

"About you? Much as I would love for my patients to have a fairy tale life and live happy, I can only work to give them health. The rest is outside my profession," she responded dryly before leaving Luka to face the woman he'd bred with and continue her rounds comfortable with Marta's situation for the first time since the loss of Cora last July. It had been over six months of this struggle. To see a positive end in sight might be premature, but she liked to be optimistic when it came to her patient's chances. Finally she would have some good news to share with Sesshoumaru.


	52. Beginning of the End

Well my lovelies, we're nearing the end. These next few chapters will be all close together in time. I'll probably frustrate you with the endings, but you'll live and you're anticipation will just be that much greater. Enjoy!

Calendar: late March

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Beginning of the End**

Sesshoumaru held his phone close as his worry eased only slightly with the words of his mate. "If that is the case, mate, what does this Sesshoumaru need to do?"

Her voice was quiet as she advised him while trying to keep from waking Rin. "You need to get him into the hospital. Any of these childhood diseases can develop complications a hanyou can ill-afford. Most of them are actually worse to get outside of childhood. What's his temperature again?"

"39.1C" came his answer.

"It's a little high for rubella but low for measles. Describe the rash. Is it thicker on the face or around the ears? How long has he had it?" she prompted clarification.

"It was pretty much all over by the time we noticed. It is very dense and apparently itches," he replied with carefully controlled concern. "He complains of a sore throat and Kikyou is at her limit trying to get him to use a tissue for his runny nose instead of continuing to sniffle."

"There's nothing for it Sesshoumaru, I can't tell if it's rubella or measles or something else entirely from here. Whatever it is you need to get him to the hospital so that they can determine which it is and hopefully help him get over it. Preferably without setting off an epidemic," she sighed. "I wish I could take the time to come there, but I have to be available here at all times."

"We understand mate," Sesshoumaru assured her, though he too wished she could be on-site to doctor their hanyou. "It is not life threatening."

"Sesshoumaru, even the most innocuous illnesses can be fatal for hanyou," She warned him sternly. "Bundle him up and get Inuyasha to the hospital. Take precautions so he can't infect anybody else. I assume Kikyou has been vaccinated since she went with you to Australia. She should be able to help and stay with him, but the both of you need to be very careful who and how you interact with people. Whatever he's got is likely contagious, highly so among the unvaccinated human population and hanyou. Try to avoid young children and all other hanyou for the time being. Japan doesn't need another outbreak like the one they had a few years back."

"That Inuyasha has caught whatever might be indicative of an outbreak already," Sesshoumaru pointed out.

"Ugh, I hope not," Kagome groaned. "When you get to the hospital and get him admitted I want you to request Kuromaki Miroku-sensei come look at him. He took up practice at one of the Tokyo hospitals, but can be called on to consult at any of them. If you can't get him then ask for Hojo Akitoki-sensei. Both were classmates of mine in high school and university and both _will_ call me to consult. It was part of the reason they pursued medicine," she continued. "Although, you might want to remind them to call upon arrival. In most cases they wait for approval before contacting me. If you give it to them immediately we can work on getting Inuyasha better all the faster."

"How can this one remind them without a name?" Sesshoumaru anxiously sighed.

"I'm going to give you my name, Sesshoumaru," she answered smartly. Under different circumstances, she might have teased him a little for being so obtuse. Sesshoumaru believed he would have preferred that to the seriousness of this situation. "I would advise against telling anyone outside Kikyou and Inuyasha that I'm your mate though."

"You do not want others to know?" Sesshoumaru asked surprised.

"Sesshoumaru, the minute the press finds out that your little brother was admitted to the hospital with the symptoms of a particularly contagious disease, your father will be alerted. There's no preventing that," she replied. "I want to have him looked over before the Taishou alpha has time to react so that you can stand up to him if it isn't safe for Inuyasha to be moved. I've found that the more influential and arrogant the parents the more likely my patient will be brought to me no matter what I advise. I'd rather not have my pack brother delivered to me suffering the same problems as Percy did."

"You expect this Sesshoumaru to stand up to the alpha successfully and you will not allow me to claim you verbally among your colleagues," He was stunned and confused. Her belief in his influence and ability was unbelievable as she had been privy to years of his frustration at his father's inability to listen to anything Sesshoumaru said. Then again, when it came down to Inuyasha's safety versus the alpha's self-entitled demands, Sesshoumaru was all the defense the younger inu would have. Certainly Izayoi wouldn't stand against her mate for the protection of her son's health and while Kikyou would stand against the world for Inuyasha, she would be completely ineffective against Hiroyuki as the alpha would not consider a single word she said.

"I don't mind you claiming me verbally, I just believe that it would be of more benefit to keep your father in the dark. The less forewarned he is, the greater my advantage if I am forced to deal with him in person. Besides, if they ship Inuyasha to SIMHH that might be the best time to facilitate your severance from the Taishou pack. You'll be here already. That is if the paperwork is all in order and Inuyasha's turned in everything for his graduation. I know he was trying to finish up early."

"Is that what caused this?" Sesshoumaru couldn't withhold the question. He rather hoped the hanyou straining himself was the cause of catching the bug and not Sesshoumaru's own illness two months prior. Sesshoumaru had been unable to block the instinctive effort to leech youki off pack mates to effectively build up his own stores quickly. Kikyou had no youki which left only Inuyasha.

"Stress can unduly effect immune systems, as can lack of sleep, malnutrition, or lack of exercise. But in this case, I suspect simple exposure would have been enough. Rubella and Measles are both highly contagious and most hanyou have never been vaccinated for whatever reason. Lets hope he caught rubella instead of the measles," she added absently. "It has a lower fatality rate and shorter duration."

"No use expressing hopes for anything now. He's caught something. We need to get him diagnosed and over it quickly," Sesshoumaru sighed.

"Pack up the last of your things before you go," she suggested. "It's unlikely you'll have much time to do so later if your father decides to ship Inuyasha here. You'll spend more time trying to convince him to let Kikyou ride with you than packing."

"Too true," He agreed. Luckily the trio had been packing up and sending their personal items to California the last few weeks. All they had left were seasonally appropriate clothing sufficient to fill one suitcase and personal electronics. Inuyasha had his school materials ready to ship out in a ready packed box. If push came to shove, they could have Kikyou's family come and mail it for them.

They even had the paperwork mostly in order. There were a few last minute lines to fill in, waiting for Inuyasha's degree to be awarded, but they were all set for the move now. "This Sesshoumaru had better see to transferring the hanyou to the hospital now. The late hour assures the greatest delay before the information makes it to the press and the pack."

"You would know best how to work around them," she gently bowed to his judgment. Her brushes with reporters and paparazzi had never been along the same lines as typified the lives of the Taishou pack. They showed up occasionally and then after proving unsuccessful at gathering anything newsworthy, generally forgot about SIMHH for a few months. It would change after Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru left the pack. But even that change would be short-lived. Sesshoumaru hoped. "I suppose you need a name before you can get Inuyasha to the hospital," his mate chuckled softly. "Kagome, Dr. Higurashi Kagome."

"Higurashi?" he asked stunned.

"That might be the other reason you should hold off on public claims. It'll go better for you to be on a different continent when my mother realizes just which of her acquaintances mated me," she laughed. Sesshoumaru had seen Kie in her most aggressive moods. Knowing that the Higurashi matriarch's wrath was going to be directed at him for harming her daughter left him in a cold sweat. "You didn't realize just how close to my family you'd been."

"Certainly not," he agreed. "This Sesshoumaru will definitely refrain from public verbal claims until the physical reunion."

"You should be scared of my mother," she replied smugly before giving a tired sigh. "You'd best get moving. Inuyasha shouldn't be left too long without medical monitoring. The contagious human diseases are notorious for ending in complications for hanyou. Chicken pox is bad enough. Rubella and Measles can both end in pneumonia. Any prolonged illness weakens the immune system, making him vulnerable to pick up something else if he gets out of this. A hospital environment is the best for him right now."

"The warning has been noted, mate. Kagome," he tasted the name that represented the woman he'd loved for years. Sesshoumaru found it quite to his liking, though he would probably continue to call her "mate" more often than by her name.

"All right then, I'll leave you to getting Inuyasha taken care of while I see about getting SIMHH ready to take in a contagious patient. We're always at the ready, but a little warning is always appreciated." Clearly she was planning to call in back up to deal with Taishou Hiroyuki. There was little doubt that his father couldn't be trusted to avoid spiking his youki when he found out what Inuyasha needed to get better. They made their rather hurried farewells and hung up to go about their respective tasks.

Sesshoumaru ran a hand over his face, pausing to rub at his dry eyes before pushing away from the wall he'd been leaning against. Kikyou was hovering over their irritable, itching hanyou, waiting for the decision of what to do.

"Inuyasha, don't scratch that!" Kikyou's scolding voice found Sesshoumaru's ear before he'd managed to walk fully into their room. "I don't care if it itches, every rash or skin irritation on the planet will not heal if you keep irritating it like that! No, I don't know what it is yet, but that's basic common sense."

"How the hell would you know?" Inuyasha grumpily demanded as he struggled with his mate to free his hands. "Are you a doctor? Have you ever treated a hanyou? For all you know, hanyou rashes have to be scratched off to get better."

"This Sesshoumaru highly doubts that. You are not a lottery ticket," came the dry comment from the big inu. "Start packing, we're taking him to the hospital."

"Aw, come on! It's not that bad!" Inuyasha protested.

"Inuyasha," Kikyou snapped. "If Sesshoumaru, who is _not_ running a fever, says to take you to the hospital we will!"

"But he didn't go to the hospital when he was sick," Inuyasha grumbled gruffly before giving a huge, wet sniff that turned Sesshoumaru's stomach.

"Use a tissue!" Kikyou yelled, shoving a box of them at her recalcitrant patient.

"This Sesshoumaru did not seek out medical assistance because we knew what it was. You are showing symptoms of a couple highly communicable diseases that are generally accompanied by some fairly lethal complications and side effects," the elder brother inserted into their little spat over hygiene. "Besides which, you are hanyou."

"What's that got to do with anything," Inuyasha demanded defensively.

"It means that your youki will interfere with your human immune system. What you've caught is more likely a human disease, one which humans are capable of fighting off, but youkai are not," Sesshoumaru declared. "This is not like father and his ill-advised belief that being hanyou makes you less than youkai. This is a biological fact. Hanyou do not survive illness well without help. We are going to get you help while hopefully preventing an epidemic."

"You know dad will find out if we go to a hospital," Inuyasha pointed out.

"I would rather deal with the alpha for your illness than for your death," Sesshoumaru explained flatly.

"You're terribly pessimistic," Inuyasha gruffly complained.

"I am realistic. The statistics are against us right now," Sesshoumaru showed no leniency. "Once there we will demand the best care possible."

"Keh," the hanyou began before dissolving into a mild coughing fit. "Fine." the boy conceded with ill-grace. "You'd better call Miroku then. He should meet us there," Inuyasha directed the suggestion at his mate who gave him a sharp nod.

Sesshoumaru's shoulders eased a little. It shouldn't be surprising that his little brother knew one of the two doctors his mate had asked for. If Kuromaki Miroku had been a classmate of his mate it was likely the male was a part of the Sanctuary Network too.

"Do not forget, pack up. It is likely that once father catches wind of Inuyuasha's illness he will insist on removing him to see a specialist," Sesshoumaru warned. "There will be little chance of collecting things at that point. The alpha moves fast."

"Yeah, yeah," Inuyasha disrespectfully dismissed his brother's words, but Kikyou nodded in understanding even as she waited for the phone to connect her to Miroku.

"Have you turned in everything required for your degree requirements?" Sesshoumaru inquired mildly as the female proceeded to persuade their chosen doctor out of his bed and to the nearest open medical facility.

"Everything's in," Inuyasha answered wearily. "I was hoping to get a chance to tweak it after the professor's had a chance to glance it over, but it could stand as the final product now, I suppose. I've already done the presentation. It won't get the best grade I could have gotten, but it would be enough to graduate."

"I'm afraid it may have to stand," Sesshoumaru informed his brother. "My mate is the specialist in this field and if father forces us to travel there early..." he trailed off.

"We won't be leaving," Inuyasha finished, his eyes widening in realization. "You know who she is."

"She informed me of her name so we could request consultation immediately upon arrival," Sesshoumaru agreed. "I had known she was the specialist for such medicine, but identity remained ambiguous."

"Yeah, she would keep that information under wraps," clearly Inuyasha knew who they were speaking of. "Wow, you caught _her_." The hanyou scratched behind his ear absently, "You know she saved my life, right? School was awful for me. The demons were bigger and stronger than me and liked to prove it with beatings that would always heal before I got home and the humans avoided me and whispered terrible, ugly things. I hated everybody and mom and dad were never around to comfort me. I got lost running from the worst of the bullies and wound up near a bridge. I was going to jump. But there she was, reaching a hand out to me and she smelled so good. She brought me to the Kuromaki shrine because it happened to be closest to where she found me. She gave me this crumpled paper crane and I realized that there were good people in the world. She told me I was part of something big and protective and the words didn't hurt so much and there were suddenly youkai who would stick up for me against the others." Inuyasha smiled nostalgically, not noticing the startled look on Sesshoumaru's face. "I had grandpa transfer me into the same school Souta was in, because I wanted to be closer to the people who made me feel safe. Who cared who I was rather than what. She made it like that," he chuckled a little wetly before taking a big sniff to prevent mucus from running from his nose. "I had the biggest crush on her for the longest time. I wasn't the only one. Nearly every hanyou male and some of the females wanted to end up with her. We were her paper cranes, and that made us somehow family."

Sesshoumaru stood there pondering what his brother said, before silently leaving the room and returning to hand the hanyou something small and metal. Inuyasha stared at him in confusion before taking a real look at the small piece of metal in his hand. "She still gives them origami cranes, but these last longer than paper," Sesshoumaru explained before leaving to complete his own packing. The crane he'd given Inuyasha had come from a box he had prepared to leave with the Higurashi's for the hanyou in Tokyo. He wanted every one of them to receive their more permanent replacement for the ones Kagome had handed out. He doubted she realized she'd been saving lives before she even started university.

It was very like her to reach for someone alone and in need. She'd reached out to Inuyasha like she had reached out to her friend and doing so had saved him a brother. Sesshoumaru hadn't been close to Inuyasha in his childhood. The alpha kept the two of them separate through different schools and different expectations. His life had been filled with distrust and isolation with only his grandfather keeping him sane. He'd never realized that Inuyasha's trials had been worse in their way.

Oh, he'd known Inuyasha had been teased, his mate and her family had informed him of that, but he'd never seen how bad the damage had truly been. Inuyasha was resilient now, brash, and determined. Inuyasha's strength stood behind every sanctuary family and every hanyou that found their way into the safer webbing of their emotional shelter. That he'd entered the network as desperately in need of their support as every other hanyou that found their way to the Sanctuary families only lent credence to their efficacy at helping their target demographic.

It didn't take long to pack individual overnight bags while also taking care of all the rest of their personal items. The subpack were all eager to move on to the next chapter of their lives, far from the petty tantrums of Taishou Hiroyuki and the paparazzi that documented their lives.

There was no escaping them outside the apartment. All of their movements seem to be watched closely, whether by the ever curious public or hired snoops sent by their father, it made no difference. The world was watching and such knowledge was exhausting. Sesshoumaru's reputation protected them from having private moments intruded upon by the freelance photographers hoping to win their bread and buetter. It wasn't enough to guard them against spies in their father's employ.

Sesshoumaru had found several repeat camera wielding visitors to the latest shrine he'd been assisting. Repeat visitors weren't unusual, but they had little reason to carry a camera. Tourists carried cameras and visited shrines sometimes, but they didn't usually visit more than once. Either type would typically converse with one or another member of the shrine family and these very visible hired watchers were lousy at blending in.

Inuyasha had yelled at a number of the more obnoxious camera wielding individuals caught tailing him. He would manage to lose the pack of nosy on-lookers often enough, but the boy was a creature of habit. There were only so many places he went, so all a stalker had to do was stake out the school, the shrine, or the apartment long enough to catch back up with him. He didn't have the time to evade his pursuers more than that with his efforts to finish up his final degree work.

Kikyou was followed from their building to the grocery store or whatever destination she'd planned to visit. When she went to the family home, she lost the most obvious trailing sleuths at the gate, but shopping trips and outings to see Inuyasha at school or visit the Higurashi shrine held no such barriers.

Things would change in rural California. It was harder to blend in without the crowd. There wasn't a surge of easily reached destinations the snoops could pretend they were heading toward. It likewise helped that their new home was insulated from outsiders by native youkai neighbors and Kagome's established relationship with the local law enforcement agencies, youkai and human.

Leaving the apartment would inevitably alert the vultures to Inuyasha's compromised health, but the lateness of the hour would offer delay on the general public and their parents hearing of it.

Sesshoumaru knew for a fact Izayoi required Hiroyuki turn off his phone after 10 pm, insisting any emergency he needed to address would deal with itself until at least 4 am when the alpha usually arose for the day.

They bundled Inuyasha up in every single piece of warm clothing he had available. The final product had the hanyou looking a few pounds heavier over every limb, but there was no chance he would take chill. Kikyou brandish a newly finished knitted scarf at her mate as they argued back and forth whether to add it.

"We can't have you wear a face mask like people with colds do, your ears won't hold them in place properly," Kikyou protested. "What you've got is probably contagious, and you cough and sneeze a lot. We have to protect everybody from too much exposure."

"I hate trying to breath with those things on," Inuyasha whined and sniffled strongly.

"Use a tissue!" she hollered at him.

"I can't do that if I'm wearing a scarf," he pointed out wearily.

"Then perhaps you should concede to wear it if only to end the argument about using something you disdain to do," Sesshoumaru interrupted the spat. "You refuse to use the proper materials to expel the excess mucus buildup, wearing something that inhibits your ability to do something you're not doing anyway is not a hardship for you."

"I will not bug you about tissues while wearing the scarf until we get you to the hospital," Kikyou promised. "It's more important to get there and protect the public from an epidemic."

"But I hate those damn things!" Inuyasha huffed, before coughing on a sneeze. "Besides, it's pink!"

"It is not pink!" Kikyou immediately refuted. "It's a nice shade of light red."

"Which is another definition of pink!" Inuyasha muttered.

Sesshoumaru was tempted to roll his eyes before walking to his own winter outer wear to dig out the very warm gray scarf his mate had sent him as a gift in years previous. "Wear this one then. Try not to snot all over it though," Sesshoumaru teased his brother. "It was a gift from my mate." He handed the long piece of clothing to Kikyou who wrapped it rather tightly around Inuyasha's face before settling a fuchsia, knit cap over his ears.

Then she and Sesshoumaru donned their coats to leave. Kikyou grabbed the overnight bag while Sesshoumaru collected the keys to his car. Inuyasha's red sports car wasn't large enough to carry them all.

They propped Inuyasha between them so that he could manage some facsimile of walking his weak, shivering body out to the elevator and down to the car. Sesshoumaru could have carried the younger male. He was strong enough, and it certainly would have been faster, but Inuyasha wasn't incoherent or unconscious and doing so would have severely damaged hanyou pride.

The elevator skipped all other stops. The hour made it likely that no other tenants were in need of it, making the trip to the parking garage under the building smooth and short. Sesshoumaru's luxury sedan rested two spaces from the elevator. He and Kikyou half dragged half carried their third companion to the back seat to get Inuyasha situated inside and wearing the proper restraints. Kikyou climbed in beside her mate while Sesshoumaru walked around to the driver's side.

It was possible they could leave the building without being detected. Sesshoumaru's car was still mostly unknown to the paparazzi. He didn't spend much time in it. Public transportation was often a faster method of traveling around the city. And he wasn't really the prize picture for the press anymore. Inuyasha was the hot topic, with the very public falling out he'd had with their alpha. Sesshoumaru was more of a side topic, almost an innocent by-stander as far as the vultures were concerned. Kikyou got more of their attention by being the reason for the father-son schism.

Really, the most attention he got from camera wielding followers was due to the money Hiroyuki paid to maintain surveillance on him. Sesshoumaru suspected the latest plan lent itself to blackmail and extortion. The alpha was trying to dig up dirt on his eldest son in order to manipulate Sesshoumaru into dropping his support of Inuyasha.

Sesshoumaru started the car with a quiet sigh, setting the heat to blast in Inuyasha's direction. March wasn't freezing as far as temperatures went, but neither was it necessarily warm in Tokyo either. He pulled from the space before directing the machine to the exit.

Amber eyes swept carefully over the spot, Hiroyuki's spy had claimed to find it standing empty. Perhaps, surveillance wasn't maintained 24 hours a day. It would be rather pointless if it was. Sesshoumaru and his flatmates seldom had a reason to leave the apartment this late. Sesshoumaru's day's of drunken partying had vanished with a mark on his mate. Inuyasha had never been as much of a party goer and certainly never drank to such excesses as Sesshoumaru.

Kikyou had lived with her parents until they'd thrown her out after mating Inuyasha. In the years Sesshoumaru had shared living space with the pair, he couldn't recall ever seeing her take more than a periodic sip or two of an alcoholic beverage. Her nights typically ended early as she was a naturally early riser. Inuyasha's sleeping habits had slowly bent to match hers through closeness and time.

Leaving a watcher in place late at night would be a waste of the watcher's time and their father's money. Well, it normally would, Sesshoumaru smirked. Emergency trips certainly couldn't be planned.

They made it to the nearest hospital emergency room without issue. Drag-carrying Inuyasha between them to the front desk.

"We need to check him in," Sesshoumaru told the scrub wearing receptionist behind the desk.

"What is the nature of his emergency?" the man demanded boredly as he shoved a clipboard and stack of admission forms across the desk.

"A fever and rash suspected of being either the measles or rubella," Sesshoumaru declared baldly. "It would behoove you to get him out of the common areas quickly lest these already compromised people manage to catch what he's got."

Kikyou reached up and snatched off the pink cap to reveal the twitching irritated ears underneath.

"He's youkai," the man observed blandly. "Youkai are immune to the measles and rubella."

"Incorrect," Sesshoumaru refuted equally as bland. "He is hanyou and not only is he capable of catching human disease, he is more likely to die from them."

"Inuyasha," a voice called from the double doors off the waiting room.

"Miroku," Inuyasha croaked through the scarf Kikyou had left in place despite having removed his coat. She'd also removed his mittens, which she promptly replaced on his hands to prevent further scratching at the rash that was barely visible in places through the layers of clothing.

"I've got a room already set up to take you," Miroku informed them, his brisk tone was tempered by a friendly squeeze of Inuyasha's shoulder. "We'll get you through this."

"Kuromaki-sensei?" the receptionist asked timidly.

"This is Taishou Inuyasha, an old school mate," Miroku declared. "He's one of those special cases I take, being half youkai, half human. They have special vulnerabilities," he concluded dismissively. "Let's get you worked up and settled in."

"Call, Higurashi Kagome in California," Sesshoumaru demanded. Miroku blinked before smiling.

"I always do," he answered.

"She is awaiting the call, there is no need to wait," Sesshoumaru added.

"That sounds like a story I want to hear," the doctor smirked before switching to more important subjects. "But first we need to get Inuyasha taken care of."

Inuyasha was slowly stripped out of his warm clothing to bare reddened skin, asked to breath under the stethoscope and forced to sit still for the otoscope all while a thermometer took his temperature. Miroku was all business through the work up, testing reflexes, asking for any other experienced symptoms and murmuring observations to himself.

"I'd say you have rubella," Miroku concluded. "The rash is starting to fade on your face and neck, a sure sign that it's not the measles. The measles rash lasts longer. Right now, there's no fluid build up in your ears, though I'd have to consult with my spouse about it as you have ears a great deal different from my usual patients. I might be looking the wrong way."

"I thought Sango was a vet," Inuyasha gruffly pointed out.

"She is," Miroku smirked, "but I've found her knowledge vastly helpful when dealing with hanyou that exhibit animal youkai appendages. The structures are a great deal more similar than most of the parents of my patients would like to admit."

"Parents?" Sesshoumaru questioned.

"I deal mostly with children. I specialized in pediatrics because most hanyou are children. The statistics see most of them dead of disease before reaching adulthood. Inuyasha's been lucky," Miroku explained. "I use my wife's knowledge of animal biology and her family calling of youkai extermination to save their lives. The exterminators have studied youkai for centuries the better to fulfill their family obligations. There's not as much call for extermination, most of them find careers in other fields, but they still act when called upon." Miroku turned his attention back to his patient, "You can put your clothes back on. I would have found you a proper hospital gown, but I doubt you'll be here long enough to make it worth the effort."

"As long as you say I'm safe to fly, we'll probably move on to where she is," Inuyasha nodded absently as Kikyou helped him dress.

"I'm going to call her to be certain of the safety of transfer, but I currently see no reason you shouldn't be able to travel safely, provided you take care to avoid infecting other people," Miroku shrugged. "The scarf was a good idea, but it'll take more than that for an enclosed space that recycles air."

"The Taishou pack has a private plane and means to employ a private air line in the event the plane is unusable," Sesshoumaru commented.

"So long as the plane is properly sterilized after the trip that sounds like a good plan," Miroku called over his shoulder as he wandered off to call up the specialist. Kagome. Sesshoumaru's mate.


	53. White Noise

For the purposes of clarification, Kagome has been away from Japan for eight years. Does this mean that Inuyasha has taken nearly _eight years_ to finish college? No. This means he's taken nearly _nine years_, because Inuyasha would have been at the end of his first year when Kagome left. How else would he know people in the university safe ride program? Does this mean he is an especially bad student? No. You've got to remember that universities and colleges will let you go to school for as long as you pay tuition. Whether or not you end with a degree is entirely up to you. Now lets say that Inuyasha wasn't particularly lazy or failed a bunch of classes he had to keep retaking, if he continued to change his degree subject, that would add time on to his study program. A study abroad would also tack on some time because most schools will limit how many credits an exchange student can take. EX. in the US most programs consider 12 credit hours per semester to be FULL TIME. If you actually took 12 credits per semester you would tack on at least two more years to a four year degree program. Inuyasha had some trouble with the language barrier during his class in Australia which probably would have made him perfectly happy to stick to that 12 credit schedule...or less even. (12 credits is a pretty light schedule for most people, unless you're enrolled in a program that is full of one credit classes.) So yes, Inuyasha has been attending school nonstop for a crazy long time, but there are explanations for it and he's finally done now!

There's not going to be nearly as much progress in this chapter as you were expecting. But then, sometimes life just goes that way.

Calendar: late March

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**White Noise**

"Hakkaku," Kagome shook the slumbering wolf quietly.

The wolves had their own room at the house. Ginta and Hakkaku could have had separate rooms, there were certainly enough bedrooms to choose from, but they chose to share. It wasn't surprising. Ookami were a pack oriented species, more so than Inu, and these two hadn't been away from their pack in Canada that long. Not that any of them spent much time in the house.

Kagome managed to get away from the clinic about one full weekend a month, mostly because it was required by her bosses. After the enforced week off last year, they'd relaxed their orders a bit. So long as she spent two consecutive nights in her own home in any given thirty day period, they left her alone. It allowed for last minute emergencies like the one that had called her early this morning.

"Hakkaku," Kagome shook him again. Rin was still asleep in her room and she wanted to let the pup sleep, but Kagome needed to get out to the clinic to be ready for Miroku's consult call. She wanted to look up some things before her former classmate contacted her. It wasn't often she had cause to treat one of the more contagious childhood diseases in person or long-distance. Rubella and Measles weren't normally what she saw. Rather she generally treated the complications that set in after the rash and fever had run their course.

In order to leave without waking Rin, one of the wolves had to be aware they were looking after Kagome's daughter.

Hakkaku groaned before sleepily rolling as far from her intruding hand as possible. Kagome had to stifle her laugh when Hakkaku rolled up and over his pack brother just to avoid waking up. Ginta growled in his sleep before rolling into Hakkaku in retaliation before settling back to rest.

Hakkaku was now against the wall, leaving much of his body entirely out of her reach.

The wolves might not need as much sleep as a human, but Kagome had found that when they did sleep, they were very determined sleepers. She couldn't blame either one for it this morning.

Kagome had heard Ginta come in around four. He had some heavy exams this week and his study group was putting in long hours in hopes of scoring well on all of them. They had been finishing up in the small hours of the morning for most of the last week, which wouldn't be a problem for Ginta. That is, if he didn't then have the long drive to the house to get any sleep. If she remembered correctly, he had an anatomy exam at noon today. He could sleep a few more hours without issue and she really wanted him to do so.

Hakkaku had gotten in about an hour before Ginta. The younger wolf was one of her nursing leads at SIMHH and all four of them, including the head nurse Connor, worked twelve hour shifts. Hakkaku had worked noon to midnight yesterday which should have had him home around one thirty. But nobody ever left right at the end of a shift. Kagome certainly didn't.

There was always something that needed to be done right when you were looking to head out.

Kagome scooted around the pile of blankets tossed to the end of the bed by shifting and kicking wolves. It was all she could do to get the pair to wear shorts to bed sometimes. It didn't matter what time of year it was, Ginta and Hakkaku would walk around the house without a stitch of clothing on if she let them. They were impervious to cold and blankets were apparently a waste. She gave them hell when they didn't make the bed after getting up anyway. Her doctor's soul just couldn't handle messy empty beds anywhere.

When she got close enough, Kagome dragged her blunt nails the length of Hakkaku's left sole. "Hakkaku, wake up," she called firmly. The wolf kicked his foot up close to her chin, but she was too far away to catch that way. Once he settled again, she repeated the action and the petulant wolf whined in protest as he jerked his entire leg up from the end of the bed. "Hakkaku, I need you to wake up," she informed the semi-slumbering wolf before running the tips of her fingers across his other foot.

"Kag'me," he slurred in a whiny tone. "Sleeping."

"I know you're sleeping, but I have to go in," Kagome reached again for his foot. The male jerked his other foot up from the first touch of her fingers to the sole with such strength he fell out of bed to the floor off the other end with a thud and a curse.

"You suck," he whined.

"I know," she accepted his judgment indulgently. "But I have to go in and Rin's asleep."

"_I_ was asleep," he pointedly reminded her.

"I know and I'm sorry, but I have an emergency consult calling in the next few hours and I'd feel better if Rin stayed here," Kagome explained. "It's a family emergency."

His bleary eyes cracked open to stare at her, "Your mom all right?"

"My family is fine," Kagome hastened to explain before rising from the floor to exit the room. That he was asking questions assured her that he was fully awake and would follow her. "My mate's younger brother managed to catch one of the big fever rash ailments."

His eyes were fully open by the time he walked through his own bedroom door into the main space behind her. "A Hanyou brother?"

Kagome nodded quietly as she made a bee-line for her shoes. It took some time to drive over to the clinic. It would take time even if she could cut across the open country to get there. "I knew Inuyasha in High school. He's a good friend of my younger brother and mated to another former classmate."

"Will you have to see your mate?" came the quiet question, halting her move to grab up her keys.

"Inuyasha was my friend. Now he's my brother, I will help him the way I went to school to help all hanyou," Kagome turned to look at her former little seriously. "Seeing my mate will not deter me. Seeing him now is only a bit earlier than we'd originally planned."

"You planned to see that jerk who hurt you?"

"Hakkaku," Kagome stared at the slender male hunched over in front of her. "He is my mate. There's no getting out of that. He has family that is hanyou, meeting him again is inevitable. I knew that. The world simply isn't big enough to prevent it forever and I've been working towards being able to see him without fear and without pain." She turned back to sweep up her keys and reach for the strap of her purse. Her doctor's coat was in her office where she left it at the end of every day's work unless she sent it out for cleaning. "I don't need you to protect me from this. I don't need you to keep me from it. He's grown from that moment as I have. We both have hurt and suffered and healed and changed. It's not perfect, but it never will be and you can't keep me in a bubble. It's not healthy and I'm not a porcelain doll. I'm going to stumble sometimes, but you can't prevent me from taking the steps that lead into that."

She turned back to him as he came close enough to reach out and touch her. "You're my friend and so close to family I don't know what I'll do when you guys go back home. But you're not my keepers and you shouldn't want to be. All you need to do for me, is give me some support when I ask for it, let me rest in silence after a stressful day, and let me struggle when I should the way I do for both of you. Be my friend," she reached out with both hands, her purse hanging from her elbow and keys jingling off the back of her pointer finger as she drew his boyish face down to kiss his nose. "I know you want to keep me from pain, but it can't be done and you'll just drive yourself crazy trying to do it. I don't want you to go crazy, Hakkaku."

When she let go, he sighed unhappily, "I get it, I don't like it, but you have to save your friend and your mate will always be your mate."

Kagome smiled up at him, "I don't know why you guys act like he's the devil incarnate, you have talked to him before."

"What?"

"That time Kouga stole my phone at the movies, you remember?" she shrugged before leading the way out of the house. There certainly hadn't been many trips to the movies after that. Kagome wasn't big on big screen shows while spending time with her littles. She had no time for them now in any case.

"I don't believe it!" Hakkaku protested wildly. "There's no way your bastard mate was that guy! He behaved better than Kouga and Kouga could never be as bad as..." he trailed off to avoid terming Sesshoumaru a rapist within her hearing. Neither wolf wanted to trigger anything by bringing up that she had been victimized that way.

"Given that Kouga never really gave me a choice about being "his woman", I'd say they're about on par," Kagome shrugged. "When Rin wakes up I'd like you to get her something light to eat. When she finds out what's going on she's going to be anxious and stressed out. I'm trying to limit the damage her stress eating is doing." Katarin had discovered the magic of comfort food after their second death at SIMHH. Her choices weren't as bad as some of the options available, but the amount of food she was taking in was growing alarming.

Youkai pups were less likely to suffer obesity and diabetes, but it did happen and Kagome refused to let her pup be one of the rare cases. She hoped when their pack was whole, the pup would get more exercise as Sesshoumaru took her to run the boundaries of the property in the usual rite of passage and bonding. Whatever Sesshoumaru had been, she didn't want to bar him from bonding with their little girl once he got here. Rin was more important and deserved the best.

"Let her pick her own clothes but pack the set I left out to bring in with you at noon," Kagome continued as she opened the car door and settled down into the driver's seat.

"You won't be back? It's just a consult," Hakkaku protested.

"My mate's father is of the same type of parent as the Alferos were," Kagome explained. "The minute he finds out his son is ill, he'll demand I come to Japan to take care of him. When I refuse, he _will_ move Inuyasha to come here. I want to have one of the rooms scrubbed down and ready for him."

Hakkaku nodded as he stepped back. Scrubbing down one of the sterile rooms would take all day. There were three designated sterile rooms, one had been inhabited by Teddy since the clinic opened. The other two were scrubbed down once a week and kept prepped to admit any new contagious patient at any time. An extra scrub down wouldn't hurt anything and knowing who was going in to it in advance meant they could tailor their preparations for the type of halfling it would house.

Kagome had called ahead so she was greeted with hot tea at the front reception counter. She swept it up gratefully, cradling the warm ceramic cup with her cold fingers. Winter was slowly loosening its icy grip over the area, but it wasn't gone yet. It was especially noticeable on early mornings in the hours just after the sun had risen. The steam wafted up into her face, warmed her ruddy cheeks and reddened nose.

"Has that call come in yet?" she promptly asked Cheryl sitting behind the desk.

Cheryl was working at the desk on weekends until Kelly found an acceptable permanent employee to share duties with. The spider loved spending time at SIMHH but preferred to be employed reading stories or encouraging creative play than answering phones and fending off unwanted visitors. The spider came to interact with the children. Kagome had brought Cheryl's attention to a demographic of children that were less likely to live to adulthood and she'd designated herself to be an aunt who spoiled them with time and stories. She wasn't paid and probably shouldn't be allowed to stick around so much, but having her around had proven helpful in that Cheryl knew an incredibly large amount of highly educated people. Her connections were invaluable and she volunteered advice on which of them Kagome should contact on her own.

Cheryl had her own style for keeping out the riffraff. Where Kelly used an innocent seeming ineptitude, Cheryl let her species scare off the attentions derived from idle or malicious curiosity. This was not a freak show and should not be treated as such was Cheryl's view. She saw the reception position as similar to trolls under bridges.

You have to pay the toll for safe passage, one had to get past the spider at the front desk. Anyone trying to gain access for nefarious reasons received a flash of spider fangs and a loosened grasp of her human face, including flashing multifaceted eyes. If ever some interloper proved resilient to the terrifying vision of Cheryl half roused to attack, they generally landed in a stickier situation than a stream of red tape any law enforcement officer could dream up. Of course no one got hurt and if any of the patients or guardians happened to witness an incident, they generally found it humorous. Kagome agreed even if the occasional reporter threatened to sue for assault and unlawful restraint.

Luckily, Cheryl only required a valid reason for entry supported by the company of a sick hanyou, EMTs, or an appointment scheduled in advance for consultation. This far out of the city and nearest town, their brushes with the most tenacious of news seekers looking for the dirt here were periodic and generally of short duration. Most of the merely curious fled at the knowledge Cheryl was a giant spider capable of taking down a full grown human and a number of youkai species. Kelly protected them all through a benign method of deflection and frustration.

Their front desk team was very effective and always on the ball. Kagome had yet to find reason to complain.

Kagome blew at the steam wafting up from the cup before taking a careful sip. The warmth infused her mouth and chest pleasantly and she felt she could go on with her morning tasks. "Has the call come in yet?" Kagome asked again when the spider seemed reluctant to answer.

"Not that one, no," was the spider's response. "We did get a call warning usss that Lacssey was exposed to the Measlesss and started showing symptomsss. Her mother hasss the beadsss on her and applied them to the half mussstang once they reached the emergency room."

"How on earth did Lacey come in contact with the Measles?" Kagome was bewildered by the fact she would be taking on two cases of childhood disease at the same time.

"Haven't you been paying attention?" Cheryl chided the young doctor. "There have been ssseveral casesss reported to the CDC in recssent monthsss. The papersss have all re-raised the isssue of voluntary vaccinationsss and public health."

"Which wouldn't really effect hanyou because they haven't been advised to get vaccinations in any case," Kagome had advised June to get both of her girls vaccinated in the next few months, but she advised against vaccinating Teddy. Bridgit and Marta were birthed by a human mother and received antibodies from June both in-utero and via breast milk. Teddy's mother, Georgia, was a full youkai and would not have carried the necessary antibodies to pass on to her son. With hanyou, it was likely a case-by-case approach to vaccinations was the most prudent course of action.

"It effectsss the environment they're in," Cheryl explained. "When mossst of the population was vaccinated, the unvaccinated were safer. With the change in percentages leaning toward more unvaccinated children combined with the incresssed ease of travel to countries where vaccinationsss are lesss easy to come by, outbreaksss and exposure will grow more common," Cheryl finished. "In any cassse, Lacssey has been exposed and is evincssing the sssymptomsss. San Francisssco intendsss to transssfer her as sssoon as she's stable."

"I guess I'll just have the staff scrub down both open sterile rooms," Kagome sighed. "Once that's done I'll need to talk with my head nurse and four shift leads to establish the best way to handle two infectious cases in house with Teddy's immune vulnerabilities." The next few weeks were going to be interesting for the staff. Lots of overtime since she couldn't risk letting any member of staff treat one of the two new patients and any other patient in the building. Sterile practices should prevent cross infection, but hanyou were like imune compromised cancer patients. Worse if they'd already caught something like most of her patients had.

Lacey was a pleasant patient at least. She slept through most of her bout of chicken pox and always had a pleasant-if tired-smile for the staff. Measles would be worse and last longer in some respects. But it wasn't the initial virus that worried Kagome. It was the complications that would set in after Lacey got over it. With these childhood diseases, survival of the initial viral infection wasn't the issue. The rash cleared up faster with hanyou due to their natural ability to quick heal flesh wounds and skin irritations. The fevers lingered about three days longer if the hanyou in question was healthy before catching whichever bug they'd caught. Complications were almost a given in hanyou cases though.

Lacey and Inuyasha were likely to come down with pneumonia from the cold-like symptoms that accompanied both Rubella and Measles. Worse than that, Kagome wouldn't be available on-site once both hanyou were stabilized. Her staff was well-versed in how to handle pneumonia hanyou cases. She _would not_ have another Cora on her hands.

Kagome would not be notifying her sponsors of her pending absence. She would not have them install a substitute in her place. There were no substitutes, but if it came down to the wire, Kagome would call in her own temporary replacement. They would need someone if another emergency came in, otherwise the clinic was safe enough for a few days without a doctor on site. She began to rack her brain for a suitable professional that was close enough to do her any good.

"You are certain the sssecond patient will be coming in?" Cheryl asked mildly. "Seemsss a ridiculousss expenssse to come so far."

Kagome blinked at the spider a moment. Inuyasha, Sesshoumaru and the publicity around the Taishou alpha had been such a part of her life for so long she was flabbergasted when people had never heard of them. Instead of trying to explain it, Kagome set down her wonderfully warm tea and headed to the old copies of magazines in the waiting room. There were few things they bothered to subscribe to for the waiting room. Digging out the appropriate issue of a world news rag she brought it back to Cheryl flipping to the story of Inuyasha's very public argument with his parents. Slapping the glossy pages down she point out the hanyou in the largest picture. "That's Inuyasha, younger son of one of the richest youkai in Japan," sliding her finger to an angry photo of the wealthy alpha, "That's his father, Taishou Hiroyuki. He's been at odds with Inuyasha for years over Inuyasha's choice in mate."

"If he's been mated for yearsss, and againssst his father'sss wishes, shouldn't the argument be moot?" the spider asked as she took the article off the higher portion of her desktop. "This quite clearly indicates that the son is both mated and married to the woman and living with his elder brother."

Kagome nodded the truth of what her friend had gleaned from the article. "That's true. However, Hiroyuki refuses to accept the permanence of Inuyasha's relationship. He insists that since Inuyasha is half human his youkai instinct regarding a mating mark would be half as potent. He's also convinced that Kikyou, Inuyasha's mate, is a gold digger and low class."

"Is she?" Cheryl asked since Kagome seemed to know more than was in the article.

"No more than I am," the doctor responded. "The point was, since the father has acknowledged that Inuyasha is different than full youkai he will likely over react."

"And he hasss the money and the correct bent in persssonality to insssist on having an expert see to his ssson's improving health," Cheryl finished for her. "I hate moronsss who think throwing money at a problem will make it go away."

Kagome wanted to add things about lacking parental styles, rich bigots, and controlling animals. Instead she left Cheryl with the periodical and reclaimed her tea. "Send Judith to me when she'd turned in morning vitals," Kagome called over her shoulder as she turned to head to her office. As disruptive as an extra scrub down on two currently vacant rooms was likely to be on the staff's regular schedule, she saw no reason to pull them from the tasks already in progress. "I need to give her a head's up about what to expect in the next couple days. Connor will be back on Monday and I want those rooms scrubbed before then."

"You don't think Lacssey will be transssferred in today?" the spider blinked at the retreating doctor.

"San Francisco is likely to hold on to her until the rash has cleared up. Measles takes longer to run through than Rubella. I imagine we won't get her until Monday. There's paperwork to go through with the CDC and I imagine they're rather frustrated with certain states allowing that opt out option for vaccinations," Kagome shrugged as she looked back at the front desk. "I'm absolutely on their side with this situation. It's one thing to forgo immunizations and vaccinations due to an allergy or compromised immune system. It's another entirely to do it based on Celebrity pseudo science and an under developed understanding of just what is included in the make up of each. But then, I'm biased by the effect it's having on my patients who couldn't have it done before now and most still won't be due to risk and lack of trial testing."

"It'sss an imperfect world filled with imperfect people," Cheryl sighed. Kagome nodded before continuing on her way.

Her office was one of the closest rooms to the reception area. It allowed her to bring back lawyers and other health risks for conferences while minimizing the risks to her patients. Her office was shielded and when visitors threatened to let loose with youki, it behooved everyone present to contain the threat as quickly as possible. All of her patient rooms were shielded now. It had required a slow build up of energy attached to the rooms and sutra used to screen them, but Kagome was diligent about adding to the strength of them often. That didn't mean she wanted to test them.

Kagome closed the door behind her before setting her warm tea on the desk and removing her heavy coat. The garment was probably bulkier than necessary for the weather they'd been having lately, but Kagome hadn't bothered to purchase transitional clothing. She hung the garment up before donning her doctor's coat in its place. A quick perusal of her book shelf found the book she wanted and she sat behind her desk, waking up her computer while glancing over the index for the section she needed.

The tea cooled before she finished refreshing her memory over what the textbook definitions and treatments were for Rubella and Measles along with her notes in the margins. The diseases weren't straight human cases, the symptoms would disappear faster and in different order than if Inuyasha and Lacey weren't mixed with youkai. It didn't matter though. The two childhood illnesses didn't have a prescribed treatment for the disease, just treatment to ease the discomfort caused by the symptoms. The itchy skin stage would have passed for both patients before making it to SIMHH. Calamine Lotion and Baking Soda baths would not be of any use. But lots of fluids would be. Temperate baths would help bring down a fever spike.

A quiet beep from the computer let her know she had an in-coming Skype call and she promptly set down the text book to accept the connection.

"That was quick," Miroku commented as soon as her image popped up on his end. "I know they told me you were expecting the call but I didn't think you were actually waiting for it."

"They called me first before deciding to bring him in," Kagome smiled mildly. "How have you been, Kuramaki-san."

"Don't act like you don't remember me, Higurashi-san," her former classmate smirked. "It's Miroku if you don't recall. Sango wants to know why you haven't called."

"Sango isn't the one admitted to the hospital right now," Kagome replied with a smirk of her own. "Tell me what the situation is. Is it safe for Inuyasha to travel?"

"I don't know why you all seem to see it as a given that Inuyasha's father will take him to California. The situation is not that desperate."

"Do you really think his father would pass up an opportunity to criticize His current companions and miss out on curing Inuyasha of more than just Rubella?" Kagome asked pointedly. "The Taishou alpha sounds like someone who would think a disagreement with his son was the result of some physical ailment rather than a difference of opinion."

"I hadn't thought of it like that," Miroku blinked. "He really can't accept Inuyasha chose Kikyou and won't give her up?"

"It seems so," Kagome answered vaguely. She knew more of the situation than Miroku had cause to believe, but she knew how to keep secrets. "So Inuyasha, can he fly?"

"Well I wouldn't necessarily advise for traveling while feeling so under the weather, but I don't see anything that would make it impossible. His ears are clear as far as I can tell, and I had to ask Sango how to check it properly before checking twice to be certain."

"Has Sango's veterinary experience proven so useful that you resort to it often?" Kagome asked. Sango's family were all traditional youkai exterminators, but there wasn't much call to use the family's traditional skills so most members found some other occupation.

"You'd be surprised," he answered. "Animal anatomy is closer to the youkai appendages most Hanyou evince than human or even youkai versions would be. The structures are similar though the connections are sometimes illogical."

"I'll keep that in mind," Kagome noted with great interest. She would have to talk to the local vet and see about purchasing some books on the subject. She was always hoping to find more ways to look at the hanyou condition. "What about his lungs?"

"No sign of the post rubella pneumonia yet. He is congested but it's early yet." Miroku had certainly seen enough cases in recent years to be able to tell. Japan had seen an outbreak of rubella about two years previous and for every human case that turned up there was at least one hanyou who caught it too. The human demographic was older than most of the hanyou cases, but that had more to do with the vaccination rates decades previous and the statistical chances of a hanyou reaching adulthood. Inuyasha had been out of the country the last time rubella had resurfaced. "If he leaves soon, he should be all right, especially if I travel with him."

"You plan to come?" Kagome was surprised. Inuyasha turning up meant there would likely be more cases soon. Rubella didn't just produce one sick patient here or there, it was too contagious for that.

"They're more than capable of handling another upsurge in Rubella cases without me, even hanyou," Miroku shrugged. "Most of my staff I trained to call up Sango if they have questions, but Hojo is about as experienced as I am. Besides, I don't expect the numbers to jump high enough to need me for another week. Hanyou start showing symptoms earlier than humans. They're like an early warning sign. An omen."

"I wasn't aware of the reduced incubation time," Kagome jotted down the information around her notes already in the margins of the open text book.

"We weren't either. Last time we just thought the kids had been to some weird rubella party until the humans started showing up a week later," Miroku explained. "Inuyasha is a friend, and I worry for him, but I'm more worried about how quickly hanyou develop pneumonia. The last thing he needs to do is get to the critical point in the air with no oxygen present and no one to administer it. We're going to need all our nursing staff present if we've got a brewing outbreak, but I'm not necessary personnel."

"Well if that's the case, you mind staying over a few days before heading home once you get here? I'm going to need someone to cover emergencies for a few days after I stabilize Inuyasha," Kagome asked. Part of her issue selecting a temporary replacement had to do with location. There were a number of far flung doctors she would trust here for a week because they were old classmates who'd gone into medicine with the purpose of spreading and following her developed treatment plans. There would be no ego getting in the way of that like there had been with Lorna Vaughn in the Cora Fiasco.

"I think I can manage that," Miroku blinked his surprise over the request. "Sango will be jealous though."

"I doubt it, you won't be seeing much more of me than you are now," Kagome scoffed.

"If I may ask, why will you be disappearing after stabilizing Inuyasha?"

"Personal reasons," she answered shortly before tendering final suggestions and instructions. Miroku had a one time method of suppressing youki. She suggested using it for the duration of the flight. It would slow down the progression of Inuyasha's almost guaranteed case of pneumonia and help to keep him more stable en route. Kagome refused to answer any of Miroku's curiosity. She wasn't comfortable divulging anything right now.

Meeting up with Sesshoumaru would lead to very specific private behaviors Kagome was both looking forward to and dreading. Instinct would drive him to prove his fitness to be her mate by sequestering them both away for carnal activity until her scent changed to reflect conception. Kagome shivered with a mix of fear and delight.

She hadn't experienced physical sex with another person in years. The one time her body came in intimate contact with another, Kagome's memory had lost all the details and her brain chemistry had been manipulated to find it all pleasurable if only fuzzily remembered. There had been intimate interludes with various toys coached by Sesshoumaru's voice through the phone. There were a smattering of lustful dreaming visions, but always at a distance.

All of Kagome's sexual experience beyond the blurry event of her mating, had been fraught with the all-encompassing safety of physical distance between her body and her partner. Sesshoumaru was half a world away through all of it. If Kagome didn't feel like participating, she just had to say so. If he tried to persuade her otherwise and she didn't feel like being persuaded, there was always the option to hang up. In person, the risks were greater.

She trusted Sesshoumaru. She'd learned the person that was inside and listened to him grow over the years. It may not have been the case in the beginning, but Kagome honestly believed she mattered to him beyond the mark the inu had used to claim her with. She hoped she was right and she prayed he would take her anxieties into account even under the drives of his instinct because she didn't think their physical relationship could take much more trauma.


	54. Riding High

Sorry loves, I got a surprise day off and when I get a day off,the first priority is to sleep in! Much as I love you, I'd rather be dreaming!

Happy Saturday! This is not the chapter you are looking for...That event (or events) that you have been waiting for will not be happening in this chapter because we all know that those last moments before a much anticipated goal are always the longest. That and I'm just plain evil about dragging things out.

I got lucky this weekend and instead of having my three days off I now have four days.

Calendar: late March

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Riding High**

Sesshoumaru stirred restlessly in his seat and glanced over at Inuyasha and Kikyou. Kikyou was holding the hanyou's hand tightly, supporting her mate and taking strength from his unconscious grip in return. Inuyasha had slept for most of the flight and Sesshoumaru couldn't blame him. Their parents had been in rare form when they arrived at the hospital.

As Kagome had suspected, it took the concerted effort of both brothers _and_ Inuyasha's doctor to keep the alpha from separating Kikyou from Inuyasha. Izayoi had stepped up to issue the "I'm his mother" argument failing to recall the fact that she had never bothered with that role when it wasn't convenient for her in the past. Naturally, the alpha had taken her side of things, anything to separate Inuyasha from the woman they both felt had tricked him somehow. Neither seemed to realize that using Inuyasha's illness as an opportunity only made them look even worse. Only the lowest form of unscrupulous manipulators would do so and the boy had made a great point of telling them so. Not that either parent cared to hear it seriously. The fight had taken a lot out of the already weakened hanyou and the youki suppression on the heels of the altercation certainly hadn't made Inuyasha feel any stronger.

The company jet was fueled and ready for travel before dawn had breached the edge of the city. Kuromaki Miroku and Kikyou had been surprised, but they were the only ones. Hiroyuki could move fast when motivated. It was somewhat of a character plus that the sickness of one of his sons could motivate him to act. Up to now it had seemed nothing moved the alpha but his own selfish gain and placating Izayoi to restore his own peace and pleasure. If only the impetus to act had included a drive to make that same son more comfortable.

Oh Inuyasha had been suitably situated in a excessively comfortable seat with proper restraints. That's where the alpha's view of Inuyasha's comfort ended. Izayoi and Hiroyuki had both attempted to maneuver Kikyou to a far area of the plane. The intent was to lecture Inuyasha into some mode of reasonable understanding, Sesshoumaru was sure as Izayoi had attempted to take the seat by his right. The closest one to his left had been claimed by the good doctor without dispute. Miroku had to be close to monitor Inuyasha's breathing properly. Inuyasha had gotten up to evade her closeness and follow his mate instead. A rather pointed game of musical chairs had ensued until the exhausted hanyou had erupted at his mother with a slew of very unattractive words about her character.

Izayoi had dissolved into some marginally realistic tears, Hiroyuki had glared forcefully at the hanyou and Sesshoumaru had been designated to keep Inuyasha's part of the plane free of their parents.

Inuyasha had fallen unconscious the minute the wheels left the pavement. The reality that he didn't have to move for almost twelve hours with Kikyou holding his hand seemed to ease the otherwise ornery invalid. It was clear the hanyou was extremely uncomfortable with post nasal drip irritating his throat and his sinuses continuously releasing runny mucus from his nose. The boy was far too miserable to deal with the effusive fretting of Izayoi or the never-ending accusations lobbed at Sesshoumaru and Kikyou for allowing Inuyasha to catch any disease at all by Hiroyuki.

As if the Taishou ever personally saw to Inuyasha's health in the first place. Inuyasha's care, like Sesshoumaru's, had been relegated to other, elder pack members, nannies, and tutors. It was likely that if Hiroyuki knew of Inuyasha's discomfort of a new moon, he had delegated the responsibility of comforting the child hanyou to their grandfather without thought. The alpha couldn't be bothered with the minutiae of raising and caring for his progeny. He was far too important to deal with such tediousness. The ass.

Kikyou had finally dozed off about an hour ago. Despite the patient's thoughtfulness in completely checking out on them, she'd fussed with his pillows and blankets and attacked his face with tissues constantly. Inuyasha would wake up to find his face had been rubbed raw with her wiping the nasal discharge from the area over his upper lip. It was a testament as to how exhausted Inuyasha was that he'd slept soundly through it all.

Miroku had assured Sesshoumaru that recovering from Rubella was generally characterized by the need for sleep. The illness took its toll wearing down resources that were already worn out by stress and the hectic activities associated with the final weeks of university. Sleep was a good thing. The only downside was that it prevented doctor and mate from feeding the poor hanyou fluids.

Sesshoumaru would rather Inuyasha sleep than have them wake him up to experience their alpha's petty behavior. Izayoi and Hiroyuki's continued attempts to "save" their son from Sesshoumaru and Kikyou had lead to several efforts to invade the quiet peace established after their initial retreat to the far end of the passenger cabin.

The jet had a separate cabin built in with an actual bed in it. It couldn't be used during take off or landing, which is why Inuyasha hadn't been placed there from the start. Once he'd passed out, nobody wanted to wake him so he could move, besides which, Inuyasha had expressed some anxiety over just who usually used the bed and what Hiroyuki and Izayoi got up to when they did. It had been hoped that the pair would go do what they did at some point, leaving everyone else alone, but the pair were determined to express their opinion over just how Inuyasha landed in this situation.

Sesshoumaru remained awake for more reasons than just preventing the invasion of their parents on his pack's achieved level of peace. The anticipation was killing him. Soon he would be reunited with his mate. Soon he would see her face for the first time since that mind clouded night when he marked her without considering her opinion of the action. His mind buzzed with all the different ways the next twenty four hours could go.

Inuyasha was the priority. Kagome would insist on getting him safely installed and stabilized before anything else would be considered. For most patients this would likely only take a few hours, but Hiroyuki and Izayoi were likely to misbehave shortly after arrival. One of the first things Hanyou admitted to SIMHH received was their own set of beads to suppress youki. The person selected to initiate suppression would be required to stay with Inuyasha. The position also asked for a lot of trust. The beads could only be removed by the person chosen. That power in the hands of the wrong person could lead to dangerous situations.

Most of the time, the person selected was a parent as Kagome's usual patients were young children. Occasionally, it was a slightly more distant relative like Cleo, Teddy's paternal aunt. Rarely, a member of SIMHH staff was chosen as had been necessary for Percy when Connor had manned up to the job. It all worked out when Percy landed in his custody after the Alferos had proven dishonorable as parents.

Sesshoumaru wished they could have made the trip without the encumbrance of alpha and mate. Such was impossible once Inuyasha became ill. Sesshoumaru sighed and shifted again against the high end finishing on the flight chair he'd claimed as his own. It was strategically placed so that all he had to do was stretch out his legs to block anyone trying to pass by. The plane was narrow and built for business conferences over long term travel comfort. A steward's station divided the passenger cabin into fore and aft sections with a narrow passageway to one side of it. It was a bit small for transpacific flight. Rather, it was capable of making the trip and they would be safe, they were just going to bounce around more than was common in a larger jet.

Turbulence was the reason Kuromaki hadn't slept. The accompanying doctor was clearly wishing he'd remained in Japan the longer the flight went on. The constant jostling as the pilots seemed to hit ever patch of roiling air over the seas made Sesshoumaru nervous. Apparently, the same motion made the human nauseous.

Still, despite his discomfort, Sesshoumaru had to respect the man that stolidly continued to monitor Inuyasha's state despite the circumstances. Miroku's strong fingers checked for fever and pulse rate every half hour and checked the sound of Inuyasha's lungs on the hour. There wasn't likely to be another patient so well looked after in the sky.

Kuromaki Miroku was just finishing up his latest check before another abrupt drop in altitude sent him stumbling Sesshoumaru's way. He landed in the chair next to the startled inu and promptly bent over to press his head between his knees. "I must protest the maneuvers of your pilot," he mumbled after a few minutes. "I cannot believe there is quite so much roiling air to be found between Japan and California."

Sesshoumaru chuckled before tapping the semi-prone male on the shoulder before handing him a damp cloth. "This Sesshoumaru is uncertain whether the fault lies with the skills of the pilot or the unfamiliarity of the territory. Most of Taishou interests and travel tend to head the other direction from Tokyo. Once we are back over land it should tame some."

"You are far more generous than I," Miroku declared after swallowing tightly. Clearly the human's nausea was severe. "I suppose I should take it as a character lesson and strive to better myself for it."

Sesshoumaru smirked at him, politely declining to notice how white Miroku's grip was on the arm rest between them. "Most individuals fail to see the whole of a situation for the troubles that plague them. It is the nature of stress and the minds working under such situations."

"And you, have you nothing to stress over in this situation?"

"I am not asleep as you can see," Sesshoumaru pointed out. "The alpha may have stepped back from the assault on Inuyasha's mating for now, but the battle is not yet over. We are merely to be lulled into a false sense of uneasy victory until this plane touches earth."

"What is their problem with Kikyou?" Miroku couldn't help but ask. "Her family history is impeccable, their economic class may not be as high as yours, but they came by it honestly."

"To the alpha and the former royalty that is his mate, wealth isn't enough," Sesshoumaru explained. "Though the true evil probably lies in the reality that they didn't pick her themselves. Choosing Kikyou was the first proof of Inuyasha's independence in thought and emotion and they can't accept that as natural and reasonable."

"They expected him to remain dependent on the decision making skills of two people he rarely saw?" Miroku asked in surprise, proving how impossible he felt that could be.

"They do not realize that the effort they put towards spending time with him does not amount to much in the formation of his personality," Sesshoumaru answered. "They believe themselves to be excellent parents, not realizing that the irregularity of their presence and seeming indifference circumvented any possibility of being so." Sesshoumaru shifted again in his seat to cross one ankle over his knee. "They believe themselves to be good people without realizing that even "good people" can be lousy parents."

"That is true," Miroku agreed. The human doctor sent a brief glance at Inuyasha shifting in his sleep before continuing the conversation. "There are many genuinely good people who spend so much time conducting great works for the benefit of society while neglecting the more personal and intimate responsibilities of raising their own family. There is not substitute for one on one interaction be it time spent physically together or conversations over the phone."

"Indeed," Sesshoumaru nodded. "How long have you known Inuyasha?"

"It seems like forever," Miroku laughed. "It wouldn't even have happened if not for Higurashi-san, she's the specialist we're going to see. Kagome was a classmate my wife and I knew from practically infancy. I was raised in a fellow shrine that had close ties to hers and Sango grew up a few blocks away from the Higurashi's shrine. We went to school together and suffered the same loss of a friend, though Kagome took it hardest. Saotomeh-kun was a good sort. Until that point, none of us had known that kids could die."

"That is a difficult thing to learn at any age," Sesshoumaru offered without giving up his knowledge of Kagome's point of view.

Miroku's smile was flat, "It changed our lives, certainly. Higurashi-san was the type to always do something and after our friend died, she started...sort of adopting every hanyou she came across. Inuyasha was such a one. She brought him to my house and the rest is history. Our two shrines benefited greatly from taking in your brother as friend though we would have helped anyway. That was before her great epiphany and unshakable determination to develop hanyou medicine."

"It is an admirable thing," Sesshoumaru commented, proud of his mate's achievement, "To strive to correct what can only be seen as a deficit in society."

Miroku swallowed again as the plain bounced higher in the air. "But at what cost?"

Sesshoumaru gazed at the human whose discomfort was fairly obvious. "Do you need some Dramamine? I'm certain there is some in the first aid kit at the steward's station."

"I brought my own and have taken all that I'm allowed for another couple hours," Miroku replied miserably. "All that's left is to hope a distraction will at least keep me from getting any worse."

"Hn," Sesshoumaru hummed thoughtfully. "Perhaps some crackers would prove helpful."

"It's possible that salt crackers will help settle my stomach, though I won't hold my breath," Miroku groaned as the plane reversed its recent bounce with a sideways slide. "At this rate it's likely to make it worse."

"Then at least it'll save you from dry heaving," Sesshoumaru threw back over his shoulder as he rose to collect the bland snack. "Why did you worry about the cost of Higurashi-san's focus on her goal?"

"Hm?" Miroku blinked, obviously having lost their previous conversation track.

"You expressed a hope for distraction. As this Sesshoumaru must assume you wouldn't want to be distracted from monitoring Inuyasha's state we are left only with conversation," Sesshoumaru returned to hand the packets off to the ashen faced male. "As such I thought it prudent to inquire into your last sentiment, that of your concern for you friend's dedication to developing hanyou medicine."

"Oh right," Miroku nodded his thanks as he tore open the package and nibbled at the bland cracker within. "It's a little stale."

"This Sesshoumaru imagines there is little call to partake of such snacks when most business flights are to mainland China and South Korea," the inu responded. "Most of the top officers in father's company bring their own cuisine to eat en route to whatever business takes them from Tokyo." Hiroyuki generally brought some sashimi along, always complaining that the Chinese associates didn't know how to properly handle meat. Murakawa, the CFO, would bring along some homemade ramen from his wife. Tsuruba, the marketing director, would demand a four course gourmet meal from Osaka. The secretaries and personal assistants that got dragged along would supply their own sustenance for the trip. All were certain it was likely the only chance they'd get to eat for most of the first day, and only because there were limits as to what else could be done in the air.

"It's fine," Miroku muttered. "Probably better anyway." He continued to nibble until Sesshoumaru wondered if he'd have to repeat his inquiry. "Kagome was incredibly close to Saotomeh-kun. She'd even declared she was going to marry him when they grew up. It was unlikely anything would have come of it. Childish decisions of that sort are generally grown out of, but he was someone special to her and I rather thought she felt responsible for him in some ways. She took care of him like he was wounded and needed the extra help for so long we started to accept the pair as one unit." Miroku took an actual bite of the stale, bland cracker and grimaced over the taste before reaching for the water bottle he'd brought along for a sip. "We were all stunned when he died. It seemed impossible but was so real. Everyone walked around like ghosts for weeks. We all expected him to show back up again except Kagome was with us and always alone. We got past it eventually of course. Life goes on and Kagome showed us how to move and mourn at the same time. None of the rest of us had suffered such a loss before. Then she started the Sanctuary families and we all joined in.

"It was high school when we started to worry," Miroku shrugged. "My wife Sango and I were with Higurashi-san through High school and into university. It became quickly apparent that while Kagome was doing splendidly in her academic and philanthropic interests, her personal life was flagging. She never went out, never dated, never made close new friends. Everything was so focused on that far distant seemingly impossible goal that we worried she would find her life empty at its end."

Sesshoumaru glanced away from the doctor to hide his amusement. To some people it was impossible for a person to be fulfilled without the inclusion of family, spouse and kids. Sesshoumaru had no doubt that had Kagome's life turned out differently, had she lived her life to the end with no lover, she would have been fulfilled by what she had achieved. Her work supplied what her friends feared she would be missing. Maybe she'd still never have children of her body, but she was already a surrogate mother and aunt to every hanyou child she had doctored. She had family, even if it wasn't in the traditional sense Kuromaki and his wife understood. "Perhaps Higurashi-san was content to pursue such things after obtaining her more important goals."

Miroku scoffed. "Statistically speaking, a woman who doesn't get married before thirty won't find a spouse. Kagome is too good to wind up a spinster."

"Your view of fulfillment is very narrow," was all Sesshoumaru could comment. The statistics Miroku referred to were a social construct, a hangover from previous decades. Such perceptions were no longer true in any other sense. "I imagine that saving lives fulfills her and the children you speak of are the patients she cares for. Patients in a Tokyo hospital are much more transient than ones in a smaller clinic far from the hustle of any city."

Spinsterhood, as defined by Kuromaki and his spouse, was growing increasingly more common as much of the adult population chose to forgo marriage entirely. What was more true was the distance from Japan and her friends and family had certainly eased the pressure off the need to find herself a husband however she could. Not that his mate had need to worry about that, Sesshoumaru smirked to himself. Kagome had been mated for years, not that many people knew about it. "There are more things in life than worrying over the belief of others that she should marry in order to find fulfillment," the inu concluded midly.

"I don't expect you to understand," Miroku huffed. "Youkai live for hundreds of years and can afford to take their time. Your fertility is equally as long in most species, moreover you are male. Time runs out faster for women."

"These are your wife's sentiments?" Sesshoumaru felt compelled to ask.

"Sango worried about it first," Miroku confirmed. "She started trying to get Kagome to notice more than her text books in high school. She was convinced Kagome would wind up with Inuyasha for at least two years. He had the biggest crush on her and Kagome wasn't completely ambivalent."

Sesshoumaru snorted, "You expected a teenager of great motivation and intelligence to connect with a mooney-eyed younger male with what probably amounted to little more than a hero-complex?"

"He did not-"

"Inuyasha confessed to this Sesshoumaru that she saved his life," the elder inu cut the doctor off. "It is not only females who fall for the people who rescue them from trouble."

"He could hardly be in need of rescue," Miroku disputed, not fully understanding the impact the Sactuary Families network had effected for most of the hanyou that found their way into it.

"Perhaps now, when he is not being rushed to her care while ill," Sesshoumaru condescended to allow. "You forget how bad he perceived his own situation to be at the time Kagome offered her hand into your little safety net."

"You weren't there," Miroku tried to point out.

"But Inuyasha was," Sesshoumaru countered. "And he says that she saved him. He also admitted to having a crush on her but that he was one of many who did among the hanyou she pulled from the wide world around the Sanctuary families." He paused before returning the topic to Higurashi Kagome's lacking efforts to find a husband. "You say she would end her life unfulfilled because she never married or had children. And yet, what does marriage offer her that her work does not? She is loved by those she saves with such care. She has children in the multitude of patients she watches over, and while sex is one of the basic pleasures in life there are many who manage to live without it."

"It's more than just sex," Miroku argued, refusing to be embarrassed by the youkai tendency for frankness over what could be considered private affairs. "When one goes home, it's having someone there with you all your days, it is companionship of the type friendship can only fill temporarily. Friends go home, children grow up and move out, patients leave, coworkers come and go, but a spouse is always there."

"Indeed," Sesshoumaru glanced at the doctor looking a little smug despite the green hue of his skin. "So who is with your spouse now?"

Miroku gave a very human growl at the obvious hole in his point given his own current situation. "You know what I mean!"

"Just so, and are you truly so intimate with Higurashi-san's personal life as to know everything she does and everyone in it?" he felt compelled to ask. The observations of Sango and Miroku were several years old, created during Kagome's later teen years like their deadline for marriage was twenty instead of thirty. A lot could happen in ten years.

"We are friends," Miroku stated with conviction.

"So you are aware that she and this Sesshoumaru have telephoned regularly for many years now and that she is currently living with two ookami youkai and a coyote pup that adopted her?" the inu continued to press him on the subject. "Or were you aware that she has had and kept several friends in all of the locations she has lived in since leaving you and your significant other?"

"I-"

"Your opinions and observations appear to me to be based only on an acquaintance that has been less than intimate for some years," Sesshoumaru continued. "Living in foreign cultures and surrounded by individuals of a vastly wider range of types than found in your rather insulated world in Tokyo. It would require a far more stubborn constitution than most humans retain to keep from expanding ones horizons in such situations. She has grown from the classmate you knew, your suppositions do not do her credit."

"Since when have you been so intimate with Kagome," Miroku demanded unwilling to accept that he and Sango could be so outside of their friends personal doings. "Why would she bother to keep in contact with you?"

"To compare relationships and argue over who knows Higurashi-san best is hardly a productive or mature use of our time," Sesshoumaru pointed out.

"You brought it up," Miroku declared petulantly.

"This Sesshoumaru was making a point that perhaps you and your spouse's concerns over Higurashi-san's life were if not completely unfounded then utterly ill-informed. The problem you saw in the woman's teens can hardly have been supposed to pass on throughout her entire adult life," Sesshoumaru responded patiently. The conversation was mostly academic. His mate had been marked since her last weeks at Tokyo University. She was not single and she did have children, one in her full time care. It was not common knowledge and as strange as it was to call his mate by a real name even in a manner less intimate than he'd prefer, it was better to keep his secrets for now. The plane was not so big, nor so noisy as to prevent the alpha from overhearing things. "It all smacks of you trying to tell your friend that she is required to find happiness in the way that you have found it instead of allowing that she is extraordinary and could find joy through other methods and means." As he said the words he realized the situation had serious parallels with Hiroyuki and Izayoi's behavior towards Inuyasha. Only, Inuyasha had followed the prescribed method of finding happiness, the alpha and his mate's issues arose with who the hanyou chose rather than how.

Miroku blinked as he considered the words Sesshoumaru had just delivered. "You are right," he swallowed a rather resistant crumb unhappily. "We haven't seen Kagome in years. When we talk it is always in a mostly professional capacity. That we haven't received wedding invitations doesn't necessarily mean she hasn't found companionship."

"The fact she had friends in you from a young age through your shared time in Tokyo University meant she had no need to make new close friends," Sesshoumaru observed. "It didn't mean she was incapable just that the need for friendship was already met. And if it wasn't, then you were not close enough to observe all her behaviors to know differently unless you stalked her."

"You're right," sighed the doctor from a shrine family. He chuckled drily after a moment, "and I wouldn't have time to spy on her during our years in college since my father married one of our high school friends right after graduation. Life was a little involved at the time."

"Indeed," Sesshoumaru asked genuinely curious. "How did that happen?"

"I really don't want to know," Miroku grinned. "My mother died before I started primary school. Ayumi was a classmate from around the time I first met Sango and Kagome. There were no clues or hints that my father and my classmate had anything going on. The proposal and subsequent elopement stunned everyone, including both families."

"Did your relationships with both survive the shock?" Sesshoumaru felt compelled to ask. The situation was intriguing. Youkai families could have such strange convolutions in them, but it was rare as most youkai mated closer to their own age than that of their pups. It helped that there were generally hundreds of years between a parent's age and that of their pups. Whereas humans could be as close in age to each other as twenty years or less.

"It is still healing a bit. I have a younger brother now who is young enough to be my own son. And we found out last month that I have another sibling on the way. So I must assume my father is happy and I try very hard not to begrudge him that, but it was rather hard to wrap my head around the idea that he married someone young enough to be my sister. Needless to say, I never leave my wife around him alone," his expression was wry and somewhat facetious despite the green tinging his complexion. Thinking it over, Sesshoumaru could see where he might feel the same about his own father.

"You make this Sesshoumaru feel vastly better about the Taishou family situation," the inu mischievously informed the human male.

Miroku groaned for a reason other than his heaving stomach, "I get that a lot."

"At least you did not marry your classmate's mother," Sesshoumaru declared with dry humor.

"Yes, I'm very glad I'm not my own grandpa," Miroku laughed in surprise.

"Will your spouse be fine without you for the time of your visit to California?" Sesshoumaru decided to change the subject.

"She should be," Miroku sighed. "She planned to invite her brother over for some sibling bonding time. He doesn't get out much since the accident back in college left him a paraplegic. Getting around is difficult and the family at home are a bit over protective. He likes visiting with us because Sango will make him get around on his own unless he asks for help. Our daughter likes to ride around in his lap when they go on outings like the zoo." Miroku was clearly pleased with his little family and nostalgic for their immediate presence despite volunteering for this trip. "No outings were planned yet, but Kohaku always asks to go somewhere when he visits." The conversation devolved into Miroku's pensive musings over where his favorite girls had already gone with Kohaku and where they were likely to go while he was gone. Occasionally the plane would dip a little more strongly than expected and the doctor's nausea would surge, but he managed to survive long enough for his next dose of Dramamine without issue.

Sesshoumaru returned to his anxious, happy thoughts over his mate, her name newly known to him, the very short hours left until he finally learned her face, warmth, touch, and passions without the interference of distance and telephone. There were moments of worry over how to handle their alpha on land, but the subject of his mate was too great, the troubles to far in the future for him to be diverted long. He would not sleep for the protection of his vulnerable pack, but he would ponder and muse and imagine what the next few days would hold for him after Inuyasha was seen to be stable and safely ensconced in the care of SIMHH. He would anticipate the clutch of small arms welcoming him home with all the love due a father and the private meeting to be had between himself and the woman he promised would be his only lover for the rest of his life.


	55. Rending the Bonds

I think many of you will enjoy this chapter. At the very least you'll be pleased that some of the things you've been waiting for are finally taking place. No I will not hurry things along because you are impatient. No I will not alter my posting schedule to cater to your demands. Patience is a virtue and even if it wasn't, it is a good thing to learn as waiting is a very common experience throughout everybody's life. It builds character!

And dragging things out does the same. It also prevents that rather rushed abrupt ending which spoils so many good fanfictions and books. I _hate_ when that happens!

Just a reminder: All guest and anonymous reviews (even if you pick out a name) will be deleted and ignored regardless of tone or content.

Calendar: late March

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Rending the Bonds**

Sesshoumaru's suspicions on the reassertion of Hiroyuki and Izayoi's efforts to manipulate Inuyasha's ill health to their benefit had not been misplaced. If not for the fast maneuvering of the good doctor, Izayoi would have displaced Kikyou from the ambulance that had been sent for Inuyasha's safe transport from the airport to the clinic. Miroku had desired to be underway as quickly as possible and required Kikyou be in the vehicle to remove the beaded necklace suppressing Inuyasha's youki in transit.

Kagome recommended the duration of youki suppression be limited so as to prevent throwing off the natural cycle already established. Inuyasha's good health up until this point indicated that his natural cycle was sufficient for protection against most disease and stability of life and it would not do him much good to throw it off. The trip had been long leading the duration of his youki suppression to press up against the upper limit she'd advised for.

But Inuyasha's breathing had turned labored shortly before landing and Miroku worried Pneumonia was setting in. If not then a very bad cold had settled deep into his lungs. He was coughing more and despite sleeping for most of the flight seemed little benefited from the rest.

Sesshoumaru was grateful for Kuromaki's taking charge of the situation upon landing so swiftly as to totally overturn their parents' efforts to manipulate the situation at all. But gratitude could not overwhelm or detract from his worry. It likewise could not make him particularly amenable to having to share a car with Hiroyuki and Izayoi, trapping him with the pair most concerned at present with illustrating the evils that had befallen Inuyasha due to his companionship and faulty stewardship.

"If you hadn't lured him from the pack estate, Inuyasha would never have been under threat of disease," Hiroyuki was in fine form, proving quite often that logic and the alpha were barely passing acquaintances most days. "The pack had enough built-in defenses to prevent something like this from ever happening before."

"Oh my poor baby!" Izayoi wailed. "He might be dieing even now without the comfort of his mama!"

Sesshoumaru kept his gaze glued on the passing scenery. He was hoping to catch some of the landmarks his mate had related as being local to their new home. There was a water tower in the nearest town that they could see from the house on the other side of SIMHH. There was an iron frame bridge over a mostly dried up creek that swelled with snow melt in the spring. Closer to town, an unused train depot stood at an otherwise empty cross road, marking one of the many places where a town used to be.

"Are you even listening?" Hiroyuki demanded of his eldest son.

Sesshoumaru growled low and declared quite solidly, "No."

His short answer seemed to stun the whole car. Izayoi even forgot to cry momentarily. "This Sesshoumaru is not listening to your inane chatter trying to shift blame instead of focusing on getting Inuyasha well again. Such talk is not helpful or productive. You do not know that living outside the city would have served to protect Inuyasha's health better as even when he lived on the estate, he did not spend all his time there. You cannot lock him in a bubble and any excursion from his home includes the risk of exposure to the public around him." He informed them both blandly without bothering to turn from the window. "That Inuyasha had not yet become ill while he lived with the greater pack does not mean that he never would. The pack does not all stay insulated on the estate full time. Even you and your mate expose yourselves to the public at large, you are both capable of carrying some germ back to infect a hanyou."

"How dare you!" Hiroyuki exploded.

"I dare," Sesshoumaru replied evenly, finally turning to glare full out at his father. "I dare much because I learned responsibility from my grandfather. I learned care from the only capable male in my life. I learned family from Inuyasha who learned it from the friends he'd made outside the pack."

"He is my son-"Hiroyuki attempted to interject unsuccessfully.

"Inuyasha is not your property," Sesshoumaru declared. "He is not your toy, your pet, or your little dress up doll." He made a point of including Izayoi in the look he'd speared his father with. "He is a full grown adult with little use for your sometime parenting and barely attempted affection. You've lost any respect he had left after the boy grew old enough to realize affection was never going to be forthcoming."

"I love my son," Izayoi cried in protest.

"You love yourself," Sesshoumaru scoffed. "A loving mother doesn't wait for public events to spend time with her child. A loving parent doesn't refuse to accept the preferences and personality quirks of a full grown son. Love would be able to allow Inuyasha to be independent of you and happy in that independence without feeling threatened by emotional distance. He is your son, not your lover."

"Don't talk to her that way! She is your better-" Hiroyuki growled.

"She is a fallible mother like every other and needs to hear the truth periodically to keep her grounded in reality instead of being wrapped up in her fantasy land. That is the duty of a mate. She is to support and love you while keeping you humble and you are to return the favor. She has erred through vanity while you did it through arrogance. You knew better," Sesshoumaru's eyes lased into his father's face. "Grandfather told you year after year, renewed the argument milestone after graduation after achievement. You must take time to parent, instead you shoved your duties off onto others and now you expect to have the position and respect without having done the work."

"I am your alpha," Hiroyuki began, expecting to cow his son.

"Actually, as soon as I file the paperwork I will be free of you and your childish tantrums," Sesshoumaru refused to be cowed. "I and my pack will not be returning to Japan to be plagued by an infantile tyrant and his manipulative mate. You can keep your emotional blackmail and your extortionist stipend games. You do not pull such crap with any other members of the pack as clearly it wouldn't work. That you thought free to do so against your own progeny indicates that once again you view us as property versus independent entities worthy of equal treatment and consideration. So you can keep your money and your company, I want no part of it."

"Good riddance," Hiroyuki declared stoutly after a full fifteen minutes regaining his footing in the conversation. "You were a disappointment right from the start."

"Oh indeed," Sesshoumaru scoffed. "I failed to hold any traits in kind with a woman I am no relation to." He returned his view to the window and passing grounds beyond, "I can hardly be held accountable for being the result of the genetic material I came from."

"You shouldn't have even been born-" Came the start of an argument Sesshoumaru wanted no part of.

"To lament over your own past actions and the result therefrom is clearly the mark of a particularly childish, undeveloped personality," he pointed out quite blandly. "One cannot change the past, it is immutable by the very fact of its already having occurred. The present is unfolding under the influence of actions taken, the future remains waiting for choices to be made. Instead of beating the dead horse that was my birth, you should instead focus on the fact the pack will be after you again to produce an heir."

"There is no need," Hiroyuki declared snidely. "Inuyasha-"

"Inuyasha is this Sesshoumaru's pack and will be declaring severance from your influence in the same paperwork as this Sesshoumaru," he cut the alpha off mildly.

"What?" Izayoi gasped loud enough to suck the air from the interior of the car and Sesshoumaru cracked his window to let some more in.

"Surely you didn't miss the fact he didn't want the position of heir when you told him this Sesshoumaru's birth robbed him of his birth rite," the younger inu observed the pair blankly. Izayoi was resorting to tears again but Hiroyuki was ready to start breathing fire.

"You stole Inuyasha! You brainwashed him out of resentment for-"

"Do you truly believe that?" Sesshoumaru wondered aloud before completely dismissing his companions from the discussion as SIMHH came in view. He leaned down to lift his small carry on bag from the floor at his feet in preparation to exit the vehicle.

"You haven't filed the paperwork yet! I am still your alpha," Hiroyuki began quite irate, failing to notice the Ambulance had arrived long enough before them to have been emptied of its precious cargo and set off again on another call.

Sesshoumaru lead the way in the front door, paying no heed to Hiroyuki and Izayoi trailing behind him. The pair should have immediately turned to claim their luggage from the trunk of the car. They had nowhere to deliver it the way he and his pack did. All of their parcels, excepting the overnight bags packed specifically for Inuyasha's stay in the clinic had been sent on to the house.

Hiroyuki and Izayoi would not be staying there and neither had bothered to pay close enough attention to what else was going on after landing to realize only their luggage was loaded in the car. Then again the pair were used to things being taken care of without their pointed direction. Neither traveled outside Hiroyuki's territory much without being on business for the company. Someone was always handling hotels and luggage and cars and planes. There was always a schedule worked out for them. But this trip wasn't on business and was made at the last minute. As far as Sesshoumaru knew, the pair hadn't booked a room anywhere or engaged for a car beyond the one that brought them from the plane.

It was likely neither one had a phone that would work in the area let alone access to on-line resources to search out a hotel, inn, bed and breakfast or other establishment equipped to meet their lofty standards. It would be interesting to see how the alpha and his mate would survive the coming days...or it would be if Sesshoumaru was going to have the luxury to observe it. He had more important things to do.

Sesshoumaru strode through the sliding doors ignoring the bombastic tones of his father demanding attention and respect. The reception desk was to the left and he made a bee-line for it, his claws searching out a pre-sealed packet filled with the very paperwork his alpha had just been informed of existing.

"May I help you?" the fairly innocent looking woman behind the high expanse of light colored wood spoke in cheerful tones. This must be Kelly, Sesshoumaru decided. Cheryl had white hair and practiced a fairly combative manner with guests.

"Inuyasha Taishou, he's just arrive," perhaps his manners were a little curt, but it seemed pointless to attempt more words over the sound of Hiroyuki's fit. "I am his brother," he added before producing his passport for identification.

"Ah, yes," Kelly nodded with a warm smile. "They're getting him settled in now. Once they've had a chance to get a work up done and have the patient settled the doctor will be out to talk with you. Please have a seat."

Sesshoumaru nodded before placing the thick envelope on top of the smooth surface and pushing it her way. "Could you drop that into your outgoing mail?"

Kelly picked up the thick parcel and glanced over the front for postage and address. Once she was satisfied that everything was in order she gave her answer, "Sure can," her voice was chipper and unperturbed despite the noise growing behind him.

"Thank you," Sesshoumaru nodded before turning from the counter to look over the chairs available. His attention was arrested before he could move further. Affixed to the wall in prominent display was the sculpture he'd designed for his mate, it depicted a flock of origami cranes taking flight. Below it was a plaque with the name of the hanyou the institute was founded for and a short epitaph explaining the reason for founding and the memory that kept it going.

Sesshoumaru had intended it for her office, he hadn't expected her to display it with such importance and pride. He meant to communicate support and acceptance that her love of a childhood friend had guided her more through her adult life than he had. It didn't matter that the friend was male. It didn't matter that he occasionally felt jealous of the long dead hanyou for knowing his mate longer and at an earlier time than himself. What mattered was that the passing of Shin through his mate's life had left trauma enough to inspire a lifetime of work that would benefit so many others.

Shin would have had her if he had lived, but he hadn't and Sesshoumaru had her instead. So long as Sesshoumaru lived, he would partner her to the best of his ability, striving to do the best for them both and whatever pack came from them. Sometimes it was overwhelming to realize just how large the pack already was without having touched his mate since their initial coming together. He blinked away an irritating amount of moisture from his eyes and cleared his throat of emotion.

"Sesshoumaru, you had best start paying attention," Hiroyuki growled but was interrupted by an excited shout of joy.

"Papa!" Sesshoumaru turned sharply to watch Rin race in his direction from deeper in the institute. She charged at him exuberantly and would have rammed him off his feet if not for the quick reach of eager claws to scoop her up into his arms where she wrapped her short arms around his neck. "Rin is so happy you're here!"

"Dirty, mixed, confused, little cur-"

Sesshoumaru ripped his attention away from the joy in his arms to snarl at his father. "You will not say anything to or about this Sesshoumaru's pup! Ever!"

Hiroyuki froze in shock, his mouth gaping open mid-slur. There was no doubt the alpha inu was confused over the fact his eldest son was allowing some pup he'd never met to call Sesshoumaru so familiarly. Or that Sesshoumaru claimed connection and responsibility for the chit. "I am still alpha of this pack and I have given no permission to you to breed or adopt any pups, let alone ones that aren't proper inu," the Taishou tycoon snidely declared when he'd recovered enough of his wits to form a coherent sentence.

"This Sesshoumaru is not a member of your pack," he nodded to the receptionist's desk, "the papers have been filed." Technically, severance wasn't completely official until the forms reached the government office and received approval. Semantic hardly mattered now. "Katarin is this Sesshoumaru's pup."

"Is Rin not able to be papa's pup?" the little girl asked. "Because Rin is Coyote instead of Inu?"

"Is your mama coyote?" Sesshoumaru easily directed the path to her answer.

"No," the coyote shook her head solemnly.

"Is she still able to be your mama?" the child's reply was a sharp nod. "Then so is this Sesshoumaru your papa," he concluded before hugging her tight and inhaling deeply of the scent he had only known through things. Getting it from the source engendered a deeper feeling of contentment over her health and greater paternal emotions. "Not a word from you or this Sesshoumaru will drag you outside and beat you into better manners," Sesshoumaru rumbled to the side at his former alpha.

"Who are they?" Rin asked curiously.

"Some confused people, lost in the middle of a lesson they should have been taught years ago," Sesshoumaru answered mildly.

"Watch your tongue before I show you why I am the alpha of the Taishou pack," Hiroyuki had apparently decided he couldn't take any more disrespect. "You are nothing in the scope of things."

Rin laughed, "Silly inu. Papa-Sesshoumaru is Papa and that makes him someone. Someone is always more than nothing. Don't you know that?"

"You insolent little-"

"Final warning, Hiroyuki," Sesshoumaru declared in a low threatening tone.

"Stop," Izayoi begged in a desperate hiss.

Rin dismissed the pair and turned her attention to her papa, "Rin didn't know she had an uncle. He just came in you know," she introduced the topic in a conversational way.

"Did you meet him already?"

"Things were too busy," the pup patted the collar of his jacket down and ran her claws over the braid she dragged over his shoulder, searching out the end to play with the tuft left beyond the elastic holding it together. "It is better to wait until things settle." She squirmed a little before seeming to remember something, "We were going to see Marta and wait for later to introduce ourselves."

"We?" Sesshoumaru prompted since the pup seemed to be alone at present.

Rin nodded sharply. "Teddy and me." Then her eyes widened as knowledge burst on her. "You have to meet Teddy!"

Sesshoumaru looked the direction Rin had raced from and spotted the half turtle in his purely human state. Sharp amber eyes searched out the single bead worked into one of the dreadlocks his aunt had put in for him. Kagome's effort to screen her more vulnerable patients from airborne diseases had finally come to fruition a few weeks earlier. A single bead spelled for cleansing and kept near the nose and mouth helped to kill off germs and reduce pollution. Every hanyou in the institute had one and they were starting to ship them out to every physician responsible for hanyou patients that was presently known. It didn't require any one person to apply and remove them. The spells were built in and self contained, barely effecting the youki levels of the wearer. The method of wearing them had been as varied as the hanyou were themselves. Calpurnia the half-bat had hers made into an earring. Polly wore hers on a necklace. Percy had asked for his to be made into a tongue ring, since he no longer spoke anyway, (Connor had insisted the half Lynx wait a few years before going that route). Another hanyou had one imbedded in a tooth. There was a goat hanyou in Canada that chose to incorporate theirs into her horns. It didn't matter how the beads were worn just that they were placed around the upper area of the body.

Teddy had his woven into his dark hair. Rin's closest friend was a far contrast to herself. His hair was a solid ebony which looked lighter against the dark tones of his skin inherited from his British father. When his youki was free, it all took on a greenish hue that came from his mother. Georgia was not green, but her complexion was apparently more olive than almond.

"Teddy, this is my papa," Rin enthusiastically waved her friend over.

"Hello," came the slightly accented reply. "Are we still going to see Marta?" Teddy asked the Coyote, wisely choosing to stay on the far side of the room. The bead's protection wasn't absolute as living in a complete bubble devoid of even light exposure to germs wasn't healthy. Youkai couldn't carry Rubella or Measles, but Izayoi was human and the airborne germs could cling to clothing.

"Of course," Rin bobbed her head before squirming to be let down. "Mama told Mr. Luka to keep Marta in her room when they normally play. We should go help to distract her." Rin turned back to Sesshoumaru after taking a couple steps toward Teddy. "You'll come too won't you?"

"This Sesshoumaru is not allowed to go back there yet, Rin," was the reply.

"Really," Rin looked scandalized before she turned big eyes on Kelly for confirmation.

"I'm afraid that's true, kiddo," the woman answered the unspoken question.

"Then Rin will-"

"Go" Sesshoumaru cut her off. "I am not going anywhere. It is important to make certain your friends know they aren't forgotten." Her expression was dubious though he sensed it was more from a desire to stay than from any disagreement with his words. A moment later the pup sighed and followed Teddy back into the mysterious recesses of the clinic. She was looking back the with every step. She obviously didn't want to miss a thing about her papa. Sesshoumaru nearly smiled at the warmth in his chest. She loved him.

Another moment and Kagome came striding in from the same direction as Rin had. There were files in her hands and a brisk urgency to her step. And the only reason he knew it was her was the fact she wore the coat he'd sent.

She'd told him she would mask her scent before he arrived. Instinct upon catching her scent would be hard to delay, inu related everything to scent and Sesshoumaru couldn't control it or his own reactions. She shielded it for his sake. He had no previous pictures of her face and the Higurashi's had no reason to drag out the family albums to show off a female he'd never met. The Institute was her main home, but the lingering contact scents of her were overpowered by cleaning agents in the main spaces.

Seeing her, knowing she was his stressed Sesshoumaru's control enough, catching a whiff of her scent would make everything more real and erode his control terribly. He knew they couldn't rush off right now. Inuyasha's health and safety were the priority. Withholding himself was required. Regardless of how wrong it felt to have a person in front of him and no scent to match, he'd rather things go this way than try to survive the other.

"Kelly, here are the workups for our two latest patients. I want them monitored closely over the next few days. Human cases may be past the contagious stage after the redness diminishes and disappears, but we've no guarantee that hanyou cases are the same. I don't want to miss flare ups or relapses. It's bad enough we'll have to contend with pneumonia in one case already," the voice he recognized even in his sleep tickled passed his ears and into the instinct centers of his brain. It truly was a good thing she'd covered up her scent.

"Are you in charge of this blasted, unprofessional place?" Hiroyuki demanded. He wasn't used to waiting and despite the fact it hadn't been more than twenty minutes yet, he was outraged with the lack of attention. He was used to more cosseting than the alpha would admit.

"Before you continue I think it best we go over the ground rules explicitly since you seem incapable of reading the writing on the wall," Kagome turned sharply towards the loud inu youkai, her voice cool and even. "Number one: this is in essence a sovereign nation in which only patients and staff are citizens. Anyone else is a hanger on of lessor priority and with fewer rights. The staff is dedicated to reclaiming the health of the patients to the exclusion of all else. If there is a patient in need of attention, they will receive it before anyone only visiting. Unless you are a patient, expect to wait for a prolonged period of time."

"How dare you! Do you know who I am?" Hiroyuki exploded before Kagome cut him off.

"Are you a patient here?" one eyebrow perked at him, clearly surprised he hadn't gotten the gist from her previous statement. "No? Then I don't care who you are. I don't play politics in these walls. I don't conduct trials or perform counseling. We strive to protect the safety and health of our patients. If we come off as rude by failing to drop important necessary care for a patient to babysit recalcitrant, impatient visitors we will have to be forgiven. You are not ill. Your life is not in danger. You can wait."

Hiroyuki and Izayoi were clearly flabbergasted at her response. And yet, they could not argue against it. They wanted Inuyasha to get well and while they found it hard to believe that the effort to fix their son required treating them like common people, the point was well made. They'd brought the hanyou here because it was the best place. The reputation was well-earned and deserved so logically there could be no protest with policies in place.

"Rule number two: any disruptions that threaten the calm and safe environment promoted for the patients at SIMHH will result in ejection and continued suspension of return for no less than twenty four hours," Kagome continued. "Such behaviors can include acts of shouting, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, and unnecessary profanity. The majority of my patients are minors and many of their parents are trying to teach their children certain values and conduct. If you cannot behave, you will be removed from their proximity."

"Who cares what lessor beings think?" Hiroyuki scoffed. He would behave however he chose. He was a cardinal lord. Clearly he'd forgotten he was a cardinal lord in a different country than the one beneath his feet. Money would have no sway here and the lesson wouldn't be learned without a practical demonstration.

Kagome wisely chose to ignore it. Time would teach them that while they might not care what so called "lessor beings" think, they would respect the rules of SIMHH or spend all their time waiting to be let back in. "Rule number three: any aggressive behavior and energy spikes will result in immediate ejection without option to return for an indefinite period of time. The patients here are very delicately balanced and deaths have resulted from unexpected energy spikes. The rooms are shielded, but not every patient remains in their room at all times. I will not risk the safety and comfort of my patients by allowing such threatening behavior to continue on site. This is your only warning."

Sesshoumaru glanced back at his father's face to see just how he'd reacted to that. Part of pack hierarchy included a fairly normal amount of posturing and assertion of dominance. Most acts included a surge in youki to prove superior power and give warning. Hiroyuki's face lacked reaction, arrogantly certain that he wouldn't have an issue. The emancipated inu turned back to his mate with a speaking look. Hiroyuki was going to be a risk to have around. There was nothing they could do about it beforehand though.

"Rule four: We are not required to allow anyone to visit any patients at any times. One advocate or guardian will be required to stay with the patient the majority of the time. All other visitors must be requested by the patient or advocate and cleared by the medical staff before anyone will be allowed beyond the lobby," she finished pointedly.

"Then Izayoi will be Inuyasha's advocate," Hiroyuki declared strongly. Finally. Here was an opportunity to push his agenda on the prodigal son.

"Inuyasha's advocate has already been chosen and installed," Kagome replied stoutly, not betraying any prior knowledge of paternal agendas or pack politics.

"That woman has no right! I want her ejected immediately," Hiroyuki growled angrily.

"On what grounds?" Kagome inquired softly. Law would be her shelter here. As an outside factor, she had no reason to please patient or parent beyond knowing her patient had to trust his advocate intrinsically. He was old enough to pick who he wanted to control the suppression beads and he had already done so. Nothing could change it now.

"She has made a dupe of him, tricked him into keeping her around, but she'll be gone as soon as we can talk some sense into him," Izayoi declared, her tones wavering with stress and weariness. "My poor boy will be free of her leeching off him soon."

"And what proof do you have of this?" Kagome demanded.

"She was born of a lesser class," Izayoi sniffed as if every evil could be summed up in that short statement.

"And?" Kagome prompted. Sesshoumaru was loving this. Watching her dance verbal circles around his parents was arousing enough to test his control even without her scent tickling his nose. "Being born of a lower social or economic class is not proof of dishonesty."

"We did not approve his choice," Hiroyuki returned.

"Which certainly makes your family relationships more pitiable but still doesn't prove the young woman is undeserving of the position granted her by Inuyasha. He is an adult in the eyes of the law. Even pack law allows him to choose his own mate regardless of alpha approval," Kagome pointed out. "He marked her and he married her, she arrived with him and he demanded she stay. There is no reason to revoke that decision as a spouse has more weight in this situation than a parent given one cannot mate or marry before reaching the age of majority. The law is on his side and hers. She will stay," she summed up flatly.

"I will not stand for this!" Hiroyuki growled.

"You are welcome to leave," Kagome replied pleasantly. "Your presence is not required and your behavior is borderline disruptive already. One would almost think you didn't know the rules at all."

"I am the lord of the Western Lands-"

"-of Japan," Kagome finished for him. "I feel the need to remind you we are not in Japan. If you wanted to be able to throw your weight around, you should have stayed there instead. It certainly would have been better for your son if you hadn't transported him here in such a fragile state but you chose to bring him here, forgoing the clout of your title and business connections. The lord of the surrounding area is Titus St. Clare, and he will support me as he is fully aware of the rules and the reasons behind their institution in the first place."

"You are impertinent," Taishou Hiroyuki grumbled.

"No sir," Kagome shook her head. "What I am is a professional determined to protect and preserve the health and continued life of your son since you have placed him in my care. I will do so even if you become the one I must protect him from."

"I am his father!" protested the inu.

"Good for you," Kagome congratulated. "I am his doctor. I am also the doctor of several others whose lives I also protect. A threat to your son is a threat to them and will not be tolerated. And before you claim their lives as inconsequential, allow me to remind you that to them, the life of your son is equally as inconsequential," she forestalled him pointedly. When the inu opened his mouth, she speared him with a look that spoke rather loudly about the futility of trying to enforce his own worth. "Now if you are quite finished trying to rail against the world as it exists in this institution, Inuyasha has expressed a willingness for visitors and should be settled in enough to receive you, provided you can behave yourselves. You will not be allowed in the room with him. There is very sensitive equipment being set up around him and his dedicated nursing team are trying to get him and his spouse properly settled. They will not be leaving the room for several days and no one beyond his nursing team will be entering it for the same amount of time to prevent infection to any of my other patients. You will be able to see and visit through an observation window and intercom set up specifically for this purpose."

"Youkai cannot carry this disease," Hiroyuki snorted as Kagome lead the way past the lobby.

"I was not aware that your mate was youkai," Kaogme declared dryly.

"She's not," Hiroyuki scoffed and Kagome turned to stare at him flatly. The inu didn't blush at his seeming stupidity but he did acknowledge that perhaps his petulance was counterproductive to getting his way with the doctor. At the very least it was leading his intelligence down inferior paths.

"Mr. Taishou, I have brought your visitors," Kagome flicked the switch on the outer com speaker so they could hear her inside before flicking it to receive.

"Don't call me that Kagome," the hanyou shuddered from his bed. "It's creepy and soon won't even apply. Call me Inuyasha."

"You know our son," came the accusation. Kagome refused to address it.

"I'm your doctor in this situation, not your friend," she returned, flicking the switch as needed.

"Nah, even here your my friend, wench," Inuyasha replied easily. "Where've you stashed Miroku?"

"He's getting situated in my office right now," Kagome replied. "Your parents are here."

"Keh," he glared at the pair over the doctor's shoulder. "I can see that. They won't be here for long. The old man won't be able to follow the rules and where he can't go his bitch won't."

"Inuyasha!" Izayoi sounded scandalized, her eyes started spilling tears almost spontaneously.

"Oh stop with the damn waterworks," Inuyasha growled grumpily. "You don't feel enough about me to inspire real tears."

"That's rude," Kikyou admonished her mate and they switched off the sound on their end to have a short argument. It was clear that she disapproved of his tone, but neither were particularly angry. The clasp of their hands never broke apart, showing their ability to support one another even while at odds.

"What's going on?" Hiroyuki demanded.

"They are not required to share everything with us," Kagome informed him. "The switch can be turned from receive to send to off if either side wishes. If one side is off, the other side will simply have to wait until both are turned on again."

"Keh, fine," Inuyasha was clearly reluctant to do what his mate wanted but was going to do it anyway. "I won't tell you what you do or don't feel, but I will chose to ignore any emotional outbursts because I'm not required to feel anything for you or because of them."

"You will respect your mother," the father asserted.

"Nope," Inuyasha shook his head, his ears clearly indicating defiance. "I did that once and you lost it. No more respect for free. You want respect you gotta earn it and you've done very little to do so since you lost the privilege."

"I am your alpha-" began the stern words.

"not for long," that Inuyasha blew off. "Sesshoumaru is my alpha, he's earned the spot and deserves it. When the paperwork goes through to separate us from you, I'll be happier than I've been since Australia!" The hanyou paled and started to cough and wheeze.

"Rest now, Inuyasha," Kagome ordered. "Paulette, I want you to keep him in that bed for at least the first three days and keep watch on his NSAID intake."

The nurse in question nodded sharply before moving the bag stand in closer to the wall. The code behind Kagome telling her shift lead to keep the patient in bed was telling Paulette that Inuyasha was the type of patient to ignore such orders. It made the stand vulnerable to being over-set and the nurses more vigilant. It wasn't unusual to have a patient that would try to get out of bed too soon. Children were always trying to move about. A patient Inuyasha's age was usually better behaved in a hospital, but there were always those who weren't used to being ill or succumbing to the weakness of their own bodies.

Seemingly satisfied with the communication, Kagome turned the com to off and turned to lead the way back toward reception.


	56. Breaking Rules

Of course Taishou Hiroyuki would never leave it at that. He didn't get to lecture Inuyasha yet and Kikyou is still in his room! SIMHH just isn't giving him the respect he deserves!... _Sarcasm_ much? Just a bit more explosives in this chapter. You're going to enjoy this...as much as you enjoyed last time even.

Calendar: late March

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Breaking Rules**

"That's it?" Hiroyuki demanded. It was quite obvious the male was upset over the shortness of their visit with Inuyasha. True, they'd barely had a chance to say anything, but the hanyou needed rest more than they needed reassurance. Inuyasha wasn't going anywhere and excess people standing around with nothing productive to do were bound to get underfoot. Experience had taught Kagome that much and age didn't seem to make much of a difference.

Kagome turned back to the inu, unimpressed with his displeasure. "The younger Taishou-san has contracted pneumonia. In order to get over it, he will need lots of fluids delivered through the IV we've set up and lots of rest. Visits in the next few days will be kept short. They will become shorter if he continues to be agitated or over-excited by proximity to his visitors." Her gaze was piercing and unflinching. "As was stated earlier, our primary objective is to help our patients get well. In order to do that, the pleasures of others will be curtailed if it is deemed unnecessary to maintaining what little good health he currently can claim. Your visits are not required. Your happiness is not my priority and you can certainly live with displeasure." Kagome turned back to lead the way out of the more private sections of SIMHH. "You are even less of a priority after the patient himself declared his brother the alpha of his choice over yourself."

"He is ill," Hiroyuki growled. "He can't be depended on to know his own mind."

"He is not delusional," Kagome returned bluntly, trying to disregard Inuyasha's choice because of this illness when she could just as easily question Sesshoumaru and find the paperwork had been filled out days ago was foolish. "His fever remains low and he is fully lucid. The patient knows what he has said and meant it."

"The paperwork has already been dropped into the mail," Sesshoumaru felt it important to add. "Inuyasha's seal is on it as is his spouse."

"It's not official yet," Hiroyuki hissed through his teeth. Kagome carefully observed the balling of the inu's hands and the tremors of restraint scaling his arms. She didn't blame Sesshoumaru for speaking truth as he saw it and she didn't consider it instigation unless he took some move that advanced on the elder youkai. Honesty was sometimes unpleasant to hear, but not an attack that would cause much harm.

"It is only a matter of time," Sesshoumaru replied. "Perhaps if you had bothered to do what your father argued with you to do, this might not have been the result."

"What would you know about it?" Hiroyuki growled. "You're just a mistake, a flawed, failure of a son. I could produce a dozen better without trying." If any of Kagome's other parents had said that to one of her patients, she'd have Cheryl bring them up in court for child abuse. Sesshoumaru wasn't a patient and he wasn't a child, but Hiroyuki was definitely proving to be the evil-incarnate she'd come to believe he was. She kept her expression scrupulously clean though. These were two adults in a conversation and she had no right to step in on either side until one or the other broke a rule and she could eject the poison from her building.

"Then go do so and leave us alone," Sesshoumaru replied evenly. "Perhaps this time you might actually try to be a good parent instead of handing your offspring off to others to do it for you. Maybe you will manage to remember the importance of pack and family often enough to prevent a repeat of this situation. Perhaps your mate will work a little harder on loving someone else instead of pretending at it for appearances. I feel for all the siblings that come after us though. Inuyasha and I survived because of grandfather. Any new brothers and sisters won't even have that support to teach them what it means to be pack, kin, and healthily loved by a parental figure." Sesshoumaru turned his eyes away from his father and former alpha to stare down the hallway ahead of him before finishing, "I have hope because it hurts to know I will not be there to offer them support as I have Inuyasha, but I don't believe you will bother to change enough to become good parents."

Hiroyuki lunged for his unwanted son with a snarl.

And found himself swiftly spun up in a partial cocoon of youkai spider silk. The inu growled impotently from his silky prison struggling futilely against the threads that stuck to him and seemed to bind tighter the more he struggled. The surprise of his situation robbed the Taishou alpha of the anger that had spiked his energies during his impromptu attack.

"Thank you for preventing an incident, Cheryl," Kagome spoke quietly, immediately recognizing the source without having to look. There was no breathlessness from surprise or inflections of anger in her voice, she'd seen it coming and instead of angry, she was sad. Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha were no longer children and they'd not been left to their parents without the buffer of a supportive grandfather to protect. Sesshoumaru's words made her realize that the next round of Taishou pups would not be so lucky. Banishing Hiroyuki now mean that if Izayoi did manage to carry another child to term Kagome would not be called upon to even consult if the resulting hanyou ever became ill. The sorrow of that truth made her ill, but couldn't be undone. Hiroyuki's own actions had made this happen. His short-sighted ego couldn't stand to realize that he was the reason his sons wanted little to do with him.

The spider didn't respond, her mouth full. The ends of the spider's silk still lingering about her spinnerets located just behind her dripping fangs. Both hands were preoccupied with holding the produced threads taut, trapping her prey in place and from doing further harm. "Taishou Hiroyuki you have violated rules two and three and moved in aggression towards another person on these premises. You have spiked your youki and threatened the well-being of every patient present beyond the one individual you attacked. You will now be removed from the grounds. The local youkai power will be called to deal with you and further inform you of what your banishment will entail." Kagome decreed, carefully clearing her sadness from the delivered words.

"I'm stronger than some insignificant foreign spider," the inu shouted, continuing to strain against the silk that trapped him. "I am the strongest inu of the western lands and will not stand for this disrespect."

"Really, Taishou-san," Kagome scoffed, truly appalled at his continued bad behavior. They needed to remove him quickly as his youki continued to spike and fluctuate with his renewed rage. "I have already informed you that you are no one of consequence here. Cheryl is not foreign whereas you are, and strength is not what's important once captured by her threads." She continued blithely, spider silk may not have been unbreakable, but it was strong as steel and when trapped inside of it was an effectively inescapable prison. "Brute force can do nothing without leverage. Now, you were informed of the rules and the consequences if you broke them. Adhering to the policies in place is not disrespectful."

"No, Sesshoumaru was disrespecting his father," Izayoi defended her mate's point.

Kagome looked the woman up and down like she was ignorant, "And you condone returning words with violence, then?" clearly such actions were hardly the sort a mother should encourage. "Even if it were a validated response, you were all told that aggression, attack, and energy spikes of any kind would lead to banishment. Why then were you so impulsive as to attack while _inside_ the institute? Surely you are not so incapable of self-control as to be incapable of removing your dispute outside and away from endangering others. Are you small children, still?" Self-control was an important lesson for everyone to learn. No one always got what they wanted out of life, disappointment was a normal experience one should learn to deal with early.

"He offered my mate criticism and has done so all morning," Izayoi protested.

"Honest criticism is not an attack on your physical body," Kagome returned. "You do not bleed from it. You endanger no one else to deliver or receive it. Just because you do not like what is said does not make it disrespectful or dishonest. You should instead consider the words and decide to either absorb them and effect change or ignore them and learn nothing."

"We are good parents," Izayoi insisted tearfully. "We kept them clothed and fed, had them educated and allowed them to travel."

"And raising children requires more than that," Kagome added gently. "Owning a pet requires more than that, even. It is not an easy job, but it is rewarding and necessary.

"What would you know of child-rearing," Izayoi scoffed.

"I believe you met my pup this morning," Kagome returned blandly. Often criticism against parents is made by people with no experience raising kids, but this was not the case with Kagome.

"The little chit that believed Sesshoumaru to be her papa," Izayoi sneered, clearly dismissing the information inferred by Kagome's daughter referring to Sesshoumaru as papa and him accepting the term. "Don't try to go there, girl. He is mated already, though he doesn't know where she is. A youkai has instincts and despite his current disrespect, a youkai he is. He will not be tempted by you. My mate is youkai and today acted as his instincts directed him. He should not be punished for acting by his nature." Her eyes began to produce tears Kagome could only suppose were meant to sway her judgment away from instituting the banishment she knew was coming.

"Instincts are no excuse for impulsive violent behavior in an environment rich with innocent bystanders," Kagome scowled refusing to address the woman's belief that the doctor was a home wrecker. "Taishou-san is not an animal and has been capable of self-control in the past, else you would not still be in one piece. Youkai can be violent with their own mates after all and instinct will direct many youkai to blame their female for a lack of pups." She added, which was true, there had been documented cases where a youkai whose mate had miscarried multiple times was beaten to death for "killing" her pups by not carrying them. It was rare, but usually occurred in matings where the male lacked control of his instincts.

"If you are banishing my mate I demand you banish Sesshoumaru as well, he instigated the whole thing," Izayoi managed to demand beyond her streaming tears and incredulous reaction to Kagome's response. It was clear there were very few who would risk speaking to the former princess that way.

"What rule has he broken then?" Kagome asked blandly, determined to prove a point to the prissy, entitled bitch. "Did he attack you, spike his youki, resort to yelling or profanity?"

"He started the argument," Izayoi replied with as much conviction as a damp rag could convey. Her regal bearing could hardly survive the constant drenching of tears. Royalty had little need to resort to emotional blackmail and were meant to appear uninfluenced by personal emotion. Besides which, being a reigning power would be backed by enough influence to render such behavior at cross purpose with their aims.

"Healthy discussion is hardly reason for ejection," Kagome returned, secretly disgusted with the woman Inuyasha had to suffer with for a mother. It was no wonder he latched onto Higurashi Kie. "The elder son's voice has been kept low, he has made no aggressive moves on the grounds. He expressed his opinion clearly and succinctly and without attempting to coerce either of you to accept or adopt his point of view. This would not have turned into an argument if the pair of you understood basic manners. No ejection would have happened at all if your spouse could keep from turning it into a disruption of our quiet hospital."

"I will get you for this!" Hiroyuki hurled the words at Cheryl and Kagome. The spider had been dragging her captive slowly towards the lobby and the door beyond. "I'll see this place wiped off the map." Nobody bothered to care about his threats. He was not the only youkai of high rank with hanyou children in his blood line. There were too many others whose children were at risk to believe Hiroyuki would ever be successful in ending their first hope of watching those mixed species children live well.

Kagome sighed before marching over to Kelly at the front desk to give the order to call Titus. "I've already requested the presence of our esteemed neighbor," Kelly informed the doctor mildly as she stood to watch the show. "I knew he was the type and sent Cheryl back as soon as she came in for her regular story time with the kids." The two females stood at the desk and watched the procession slowly pass to the sliding door and get caught on the built in traction strips. Cheryl's muscles were determinedly straining against the dead weight of the spiteful, obnoxious inu. Izayoi wandered behind trying to reason with the spider between attempts to get Sesshoumaru punished in Hiroyuki's place. Barring that, the woman wanted the son to suffer the same.

They were definitely lousy parents, the proof only solidified what she'd known all along. To call one son a failure and mistake and inform him of such was terrible, especially given that she knew he'd never done less than was expected of the heir. He studied business because he was locked into the future CEO position. He excelled in his classes because it was expected. Sesshoumaru had no control over the circumstances of his birth. But the world wasn't fair and well Kagome knew it.

She knew how the pair had treated Inuyasha. She'd seen him, watched him suffer from the continued neglect. He'd only begun to find peace after spending time with her family. The hanyou called _her_ mother "mom". _Her _grandfather was "Ji-chan". When the car came to pick him up, nobody ever bothered to come upstairs to talk to the people Inuyasha spent so much time with.

Talking with Sesshoumaru let her know that Inuyasha's grandfather was too frail to make the trip to pick up Inuyasha. She should have picked it up on her own. There had been speculation flirting through the gossip channels about the eldest Taishou's peculiar reclusive behavior years before his death. There were even some people who believed the old youkai was still alive because sightings of him had been so rare towards the end.

With a sigh for recent hassles and past blindness, Kagome left Kelly at the desk to follow after Cheryl's prisoner across the damp pavement out front. A light drizzle had decided to let loose sometime after the Taishou's arrived moistening the landscape and slicking down the sky with gray. The covered area reserved for ambulances and patient drop offs did little to protect her from the gusts of air pushing moisture under the overhang. The sun hadn't been particularly strong earlier, but it had warmed the air enough to make the sporadic gusts seem refreshing. With the added sting of tiny droplets, the moving air just seemed an added punishment to the biting chill in the air.

Kagome shivered as she clutched her doctor coat tight around her middle. Patiently she waited for Titus to arrive and remove the incredibly rude banished youkai from her custody. Her eyes scanned the sky for the blue-gray cloud that signaled Titus St. Claire's approach amidst the presence of all the other blue-gray clouds in the sky. Depending on what other business her neighbor was dealing with today, Titus could be delayed up to fifteen minutes.

Cheryl carefully worked the silk threads from her open fangs before wrapping thick paper around the last two feet of the leash she'd used to drag Hiroyuki from SIMHH. Arachnids were the only youkai capable of handling their own silk without getting stuck to it or making a tangled mess.

Lord Titus was many things, but a spider wasn't one of them. There was a way to neutralize Cheryl's threads and the cocoon Taishou had been spun in, but there was no way to do it piece meal. The outside couldn't be rendered clean of the sticky compounds the spider secreted while leaving the inside alone. More, one couldn't take away the adhesive properties without severely weakening the strands, resulting in premature release of anything caught in them.

Proof of just how sticky the threads were stained the outside of the squirming, threatening inu bundle. Kagome knew spider silk was technically colorless but in a bundle of clean threads it appeared white. After being dragged over their repeatedly cleaned floors and the damp pavement out front, most of the outside of Cheryl's dragging load was blackened with dirt.

"Do shut up, puppy dog," Cheryl huffed at the bombastic canine, just as unimpressed as Kagome was. "The decssision wasss made, there will be no leniencssy after you attacked unprovoked in proximity to vulnerable children. May life protect you from ever needing the ssservicesss of this inssstitute, for you will not be welcome here."

"This is outrageous!" Growled the perturbed foreign lord. Kagome wondered just how much time had passed since the last time Hiroyuki had suffered any true opposition. His behavior made her think he was long overdue.

"Thisss is reality," Cheryl returned. "Thisss is life. No one is above the rulesss or the law. The rulesss of remaining here were explained to you, they were posssted prominently on the wall to notify all visitorsss. You were told you would not receive ssspecial treatment for you are not a ssspecial cassse. A mature adult would accept that. A reasssonable individual would hardly threaten the enforcer for their own actionsss. You attacked. You were told aggression would be groundsss for ejection. You were told there would be no other warning. You chose to act anyway. Actionsss have consequencesss. Accept that."

"Titus is on his way," Kagome called to Cheryl before the Taishou alpha could say something to provoke the already angry spider. Once outside the Institute there were no official rules against fighting, but it would be rather rude to delay the coming lord from removing the problem promptly. Besides which, he was giving Kagome a headache and keeping her from other duties she needed to complete. Miroku still needed to be given a quick tour and run down of her patients and staff. She needed to do a last check on Lacey and get Inuyasha set up with his own set of beads under Kikyou's control.

Calling Titus tore him away from his own busy schedule and his job was just as important and life altering as hers could be. Time away was time in which impatient plaintiffs and petitioners could decide they'd rather attack each other than wait for the lord to see them. Such behavior would naturally increase any punishment handed down, but it also increased the risk of injury or death. There was no undoing some injuries and death was as permanent from violence as from disease.

Kagome hated to call him, but when she did, she preferred to keep his visits quick and sweet. Knowing she was increasing his workload never sat well with her, but she had no other options. The institute couldn't hold a youkai on the grounds. Violent visitors rarely calmed down quickly. Just shoving them outside was insufficient to protect her patients and prevent their return. Titus took ejections seriously and punished them harshly.

Perhaps more harshly than she would, but Kagome had not suffered any returned youkai so she couldn't complain and had no right to interfere. She just made the hand off as easy as possible. If that meant she had to prevent Hiroyuki's mouth from setting off Cheryl, so be it.

Besides, attacking someone who couldn't fight back was uncouth behavior she never wanted her pup to learn anything about. Rin may not be obviously present, but there was no rule that the small pup wouldn't walk past the glass fronted reception area just as Cheryl lunged at her squirming prisoner. Children watched the adults around them for examples of proper behavior. Instilling proper behavior was a constant effort Kagome took seriously.

Children would lash out against others who tease or frustrate them. It was the job of a parent to teach children better ways to deal with stress, differences and adversity. Violece had a very limited allowable application in the adult world no matter a person's species. Most youkai had a stronger inclination for violence that Kagome was trying to direct in socially appropriate paths.

As a Coyote, Rin would be expected to know how to hunt and defend herself against others of her own kind. There were certain courtship rituals and rites of passage defined by physical acts and achievements. Rin would be expected to prove her strength and resilience amongst peers and inside the pack and family she would someday have. Her place in the hierarchy would have more to do with her ability to defend and fight than in diplomacy sometimes. To some it might seem barbaric and unnecessarily violent, but instinct was instinct.

Kagome was human. She could not teach her pup the best way to knock over another Coyote. She could not school the little female in how to track beyond the basics of the little infantile games that Rin had loved in their small pool house home. Kagome had no knowledge of where other coyote young were being raised and could not set it up for Rin to socialize with them and learn the proper behaviors used to find and maintain a proper social hierarchy in a pack. Book learning could only provide so much and time was limited.

Some things could only be passed on by youkai. As much as Kagome tried to understand, she simply didn't have the instincts necessary to teach Rin about hers. Sesshoumaru would have to do it and Kagome would do her best to avoid interfering. Trust was a hard commodity to come by when it came to her baby but Sesshoumaru had proven genuinely capable.

Kagome took a deep breath and held it carefully before releasing it slowly. She'd wanted to greet Sesshoumaru inside when she first saw him. She'd wanted to hug him as she knew Rin had done but she'd also been afraid to get that close. Contrasting emotions were confusing and frustrating, but her therapist claimed they were also healthy and inevitable. Acknowledgment would make it easier to sort them out and make viable decisions Kagome could live with.

Kagome had already made her decision, she just wished the decision had ended the confusion. Unfortunately, only time could get her past this. Some day, she and time were going to have at it. This happened a little too often.

Titus arrived with a flourish of his youki that forcefully blew a seeming deluge of raindrops under the covered portion of the drive and stirred up enough dirt in the flower beds to blind everybody standing in wait.

Kagome coughed delicately as she tried to blink gritty debris from her eyes. Every youkai seemed to have a rather annoying sense for the dramatic. Sometimes showing off at first appearance helped to set the tone of events that followed. It was all politics that Kagome preferred to be practiced somewhere far away from her. Swallowing carefully, straining to hide the grimace of distaste at the grit that rubbed against her teeth, she spoke to the wolverine youkai, "Thank you for coming so quickly. I am sorry to interrupt your other duties, but this one is going to be tricky."

Titus grinned at her from under his salt and pepper hair. His clothes were an unusual gray blue that blended into the sky when he flew. From a distance it was a perfect match for his age lightened hair leaving only his bronze skin to stand out starkly in contrast. Rin usually avoided him as wolverines were known to hunt and devour coyote in the wild. Titus had become lord over his massive territory by virtue of his species and his age. Wolverines had only one natural enemy in the animal kingdom something that had easily carried over into the youkai version, and a confrontation between one of each was never easily or quickly decided.

"Dr. Higurashi, your occasional trouble is far more interesting and fun than anything on my roster for the day," Titus smiled harshly. "Sybil always loves hearing about how I handled some recalcitrant miscreant out to endanger babies to show how powerful they are."

"How dare you insult me!" Hiroyuki growled. "I am the Lord of the Western Lands!'

"The Western Lands of Japan," Kagome clarified.

"Indeed," Titus glared down at the trapped dog at his feet. "For I am the Lord of these Western lands here, little puppy."

"Taishou Hiroyuki's second son was brought into my care and he saw fit to attack his eldest son immediately after visiting the younger," Kagome explained blandly.

"It wasn't unprovoked," Izayoi insisted. "Sesshoumaru disrespected him and has been all morning."

"Did the elder son attack his father?" Titus gazed at the woman with his eerily hard green-yellow eyes. "Did he lunge, poke, strike or otherwise physically attack the scum at my feet?"

"I-" Izayoi stopped short, finally grasping that the protections her mate had enforced and the pack had followed would do her no good with this youkai staring her down. There were very few youkai who could compare with Titus for sheer strength and stubbornness. It was what made him so very good at being the lord.

"Dr. Hirgurashi," Titus turned his gaze to the wet miko beginning to shiver more violently in the damp and chill.

Kagome replied the silent demand for clarification, "The attack was unprovoked and would have done serious damage had it landed as the target was not even looking in that direction."

"Attacking unprovoked and from behind in a territory that you had already been informed anything of the sort was grounds for banishment," Titus hummed thoughtfully. Kagome wasn't certain why he cared that Sesshoumaru hadn't been looking at Hiroyuki when he attacked. It was dishonorable to attack from a blind spot, but wolverines were known to fight dirty. Titus had explained it to her shortly after they'd met. He'd said that honor 'was well and good, but the object was survival and victory.' Pretty manners would merely get you killed. "Well nothing for it, allow me to take this pompous, dog sausage off your hands and send him back to Japan where he will have time to learn proper self-control and manners."

Cheryl slapped the paper covered end of her makeshift leash in his outstretched hand before turning to stand beside Kagome as he took off.

"Wait!" Izayoi wailed in confusion. "What about me?" Titus didn't bother to turn back or otherwise acknowledge the screechy woman.

"What about you?" Cheryl asked with a bored sniff. "You have not been banished. You are not youkai and therefore not Lord Titusss's problem."

"You may stay to visit with Inuyasha later," Kagome answered, "but you should probably look to make arrangements for the evening and remove your luggage from the drive. This area is an emergency entrance. We get ambulances in here in a rush that won't be impeded by some badly located leather valises."

Izayoi gasped in outrage, "Why are they standing there? They should have been taken inside! The service here-"

"This is not a hotel," Kagome cut in. "You will not be staying here. SIMHH does not at present offer visitor accommodations on the grounds. Most likely your driver did his job in insuring you did not leave your bags in his car before leaving. There are no porters here to handle your add-ons. What you do not carry yourself will remain where it is."

"I am the mate of Taishou Hiroyuki-" Izayoi began, puffing herself up to outraged dignity.

"Good for you," Cheryl scoffed before tugging Kagome back through the sliding doors to the reception area. "Insssufferable woman! Actsss like it is imposssible for her to do anything herssself."

"Did you see the brat off successfully?" Kelly asked needlessly. She had a clear view of the outside world from her desk and the front lawns rolled away from the miniscule parking lot to show the nearest town in the middle distance. Titus and his dangling prisoner had moved out of sight towards the west rather quickly, but there was no way Kelly had missed his arrival and quick departure. Nor did Kagome think for a second that her receptionist had missed the fact that Taishou Izayoi was currently struggling to remover her bags from the middle of the drive.

The rain was beginning to pick up and instead of the rather ambivalent drizzle, the precipitation took on a rather vindictive weight. What before was more of a light mist that was only annoying in the way it managed to find its way under things became a healthy down pour with drops that hit the windows in a hard staccato rhythm. "Kelly, call that woman a cab will you? I'd like to get her out of our hair before we really have to take her in," Kagome sighed. "If she gets sick on our doorstep we'll be stuck caring for her, at least temporarily."

"You're right, Dr. H." Kelly nodded before picking up the phone.

"Ssspeaking of becoming ill," Cheryl grabbed Kagome close to look her up and down. "You should change into sssomething warm and dry. We wouldn't want you catching anything jussst now. I will make you sssome tea."

"A shower might even be beneficial," Kelly added with a hand over the mouth piece of her phone. "She's not just damp and cold. Lord Titus kicked up a lot of stuff when he came in."

"Yesss," Cheryl nodded as she moved to shove Kagome in the direction of her office. "We wouldn't want you to passs sssomething of that filth on to the kidsss."

"But I-" Kagome stiffly tried to impede the efforts to oust her from the lobby. She hadn't had a chance to speak to Sesshoumaru about anything but Inuyasha and she really should greet him. Speaking of, she glanced quickly around the room, where had he gotten to? It was wise of him not to follow his parents outside. The situation had been hassle enough without his mere presence stirring things up further, which wasn't to say she didn't want him around just that it was a lot easier to separate two combatants when one chose to stay put rather than pursue.

Sesshoumaru had maintained as much physical distance between the two of them as possible when they went to visit Inuyasha earlier. She'd lost track of him while facilitating the Taishou alpha's removal from her building but Kagome finally found her golden-eyed inu standing on the far side of the room beside the open archway into the play room. He watched her from afar and nodded her from the room with silent concern.

"Don't worry, we'll take care of the young inu while you're gone," Cheryl pushed Kagome's shoulders more firmly. "We have lotsss to talk about with him."

"Cheryl," Kagome began worriedly, unable to free her gaze from the gold since she'd managed to catch it.

"You'll have to leave him alone with me sssometime," the spider whispered in her ear. "And I want to ssset sssome ground rulesss if he is to be clossse to you." Sesshoumaru's gaze flit briefly from Kagome's blue before reconnecting to communicate a resigned acceptance. He nodded again for her to leave and Kagome sighed. "I'll not hurt him," Cheryl assured the good doctor, "Kelly will sssee to that. I'll jussst warn him a little."

Kagome managed a glare for her protective friend before giving in to the inevitable and hurrying into her office to shower, change, and move onto the next tasks she needed to finish.


	57. Pied Piper

This week at work has been especially stressful, frustrating, and exhausting. I work at a lab that takes in samples and runs a panel of tests looking for over 100 specific compounds. I'm a data reviewer which means about 24 hours after a sample arrives I get to work on it since it takes that long to complete testing for any given day's worth of samples. We run the tests over night for the sake of efficiency so that we can meet our proposed turn around time. On WEdnesday, CPS turned off our power after five, so as to switch us to a better connection and some other technical stuff to keep us out of running at dangerous levels. Which meant tests did not get run that evening putting us a day behind. In order to hopefully truncate some of the worst effects of the problem we ran some samples at a sister lab that runs the same panels. WE had some storms roll through the area and knock out power at the sister lab, which didn't disrupt the tests (thank all that is holy) but did delay our ability to LOoK at the results. (And my apartment was out of power from about 5:25am until about an hour after I left for work. *sigh* so no internet on the laptop until after work.) The end result is that I worked until 7:30pm on Thursday (normal out 5:30pm) and we barely caught up (about 5:45pm) Friday evening.

The storms also delayed sample delivery Friday morning meaning that Saturdays results will come out later, pushing back our out time again. I'm tired. Another strom rolled through this morning at 4am, waking me up again (the one Friday morning woke me too) but luckily my power stayed on, hopefully it stayed on at the lab too!

I've still got a bit more to write on this story. But you keep catching up so fast. You need to stop it! You keep this up I'll run out of chapters before it's time to post! Not yet, I'm just being lazy.

I leave you now to enjoy this latest installment of PC. This is not the chapter you're looking for, but I think you'll still enjoy it.

Calendar: late March

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Pied Piper**

Sesshoumaru's eyes followed his mate until she disappeared from sight before refocusing on the spider that was determined to school him in the bounds of his life. He knew Cheryl was dangerous. He knew she could do him harm, but she didn't seem to understand that it wasn't the physical that would hurt him most if he ever crossed a boundary.

To hurt his mate would be to cripple himself. They were both finally healing from the damage he'd done years ago through ignorance and arrogance. Sesshoumaru knew that if he ever repeated his original mistake, they would never recover. He knew better now and she was aware of that. Kagome had lead him on a long chase that was rife with all the lessons he should have learned in childhood.

Everyone was entitled to their own feelings. Everyone was entitled to their own choices. Everyone was also required to suffer the consequences of their actions. Nothing came for free and no one was less worthy of consideration than anyone else. Granted, part of the punishment for mistakes and crimes took away some freedoms, but that fell under the consequences of choices and actions taken. Because nothing was free.

Sometimes you paid for mistakes made forever.

"How nicsse to meet you, I am Cheryl," the spider offered him a mildly threatening smile, allowing her fangs to show and drip at him. Her threat was real and obvious, but Sesshoumaru didn't fear what the spider could do to him. If he ever did something that would inspire her to punish him on Kagome's behalf, the physical pain might actually be a relief. He wasn't dismissing Cheryl. Only a fool would do so, but it was rather like beating a dead horse. He'd seen her in action. She'd threatened him with a smile, there was no need for further words.

"Hn," Sesshoumaru acknowledged the female with a nod, before turning to see if Izayoi had managed to get her bags out of the wet and under cover. Instead of finding her resting after the tiny triumph or still struggling to drag the collection of matched luggage out of the fast lane, he found her collapsed and sobbing after moving one bag out of the rain. There were three more left to move and no break in the weather to be seen.

He may not like Izayoi. He may not even be part of their pack, but like his mate, he didn't wish to see her ill. It had nothing to do with his father and very little to do with the woman herself. Likewise he cared not that her care would be foisted onto SIMHH because the inconvenience would be of short duration and trouble him not at all. There was just no reason to leave her crying in the rain.

It would cost him nothing to help her a little and wouldn't necessarily detract from the situational lesson she found herself in. Izayoi would still be stranded and on her own. She would still have to find herself someplace to lodge over night. If Hiroyuki was deported as Kagome had told him was often the case for foreign youkai that pissed Titus off, Izayoi would have to decide whether to stay for Inuyasha or go home. And she would have to plan her own way home whenever she did bother to return to Japan.

If Sesshoumaru went outside to help her now it would be more like a stranger giving aid to someone in need on the street. That is, if the woman would accept his assistance.

Izayoi was of a rather capricious temper. Whatever she had been before mating Taishou Hiroyuki had been altered by decades under his care, given everything money could buy, meeting every charitable goal she set, and coddled through every minor complaint. Nothing she ever suffered through was her fault. There was always some handy scape goat to accept the blame. Should the elected sacrifice have the bad taste to bring up fair play and factual cause and effect, things went all the harder until Izayoi was mollified.

The only thing her mate hadn't let her escape the blame for was Izayoi's inability to carry a baby to term. There were no other parties involved beyond the inu and his woman and there was no way Hiroyuki would take the blame there. He managed to help her conceive, gestation was her business alone.

Sesshoumaru sighed before approaching Kelly at the desk. "Is there an umbrella handy?" he asked, focusing his golden eyes on the petite female typing information into the computer with a decidedly inefficient appearing manner. Only two fingers seemed to come in contact with the keyboard, laboriously locating each letter before firmly pressing it.

Kelly blinked at him before glancing outside to Izayoi, still slouched over her bags and sobbing. "You plan to go out there?"

"She's blocking the ambulance lane," Sesshoumaru shrugged. "We should at least hasten her clearance of the area."

"I doubt she would accsept your help," Cheryl scoffed. "She blamesss you for that hoodlum dog'sss ejection."

"Wherever Izayoi chooses to settle the blame is immaterial to the fact that she cannot be left where she is," Sesshoumaru shrugged. "Your assistance would likely be less acceptable than mine given that you were the enforcer that facilitated my father's removal. She is undeserving of callousness or rudeness, some minor assistance cannot hurt her whether she wants it or not."

"I am not rude!" Cheryl huffed.

"Perhaps not," Sesshoumaru conceded, "But you will likely be impatient with her and speak abruptly in patronizing tones."

"Don't act like you know how I will behave-" Cheryl chided in strong tones.

"I believe your first comment upon returning to the building was that she was "insufferable" and shouldn't act as if she were so incredibly incapable of caring for herself," Sesshoumaru interjected mildly. "Such a sentiment suggests a lack of patience with Izayoi's current plight."

"He's got you there," Kelly smiled at Cheryl.

"She jussst sssuch a ninny," the spider defended.

"Whether Izayoi is such or not is immaterial," Sesshoumaru shrugged. "Your opinion of her is likely to be conveyed to her through your manner of offering assistance."

"You do not counterfeit disinterested kindness well," Kelly confirmed. "It doesn't usually make much of a difference, but the woman also has her pride."

"More than her share," Cheryl scoffed but conceded the point.

"Izayoi was raised in a time where human women of the nobility were trained for little more than procreation," Sesshoumaru offered in Izayoi's defense.

"Perhapsss, but sssuch a time has long sssincsse passst," Cheryl pointed out. "She hasss lived far too long to learn nothing new."

"This Sesshoumaru's father would have had no need for her to learn any other way of being. He did not mate Izayoi to rule beside him," the inu rejoined. "She has never been encouraged to properly look after herself or anyone else."

"Well then," Cheryl crossed her arms in dismissal, "it is about time she learned."

"Maybe," Kelly smirked as she unearthed her umbrella from under her purse in the desk drawer. "But that does not mean you need to make the lesson harder than it has to be."

Sesshoumaru reached for the collapsible green umbrella in Kelly's hand only to have his reach rebuffed by the petite female. "I thought-"

"While we agree that Cheryl isn't the best candidate to offer our pathetic guest on the doorstep assistance, I'm afraid my dear colleague was also right in that you are not likely to be a welcome avenue of assistance either," Kelly smiled gently to soften her observation. "Plus, you don't actually work here. The shuttle is on the way to drop off the noon meal, if we can get her collected and ready to go, it can take her back into town. It's likely to be mostly empty since a large portion of our nursing staff won't be going home in the numbers they normally do." The woman came around the desk, tapping Cheryl on the shoulder in passing as she headed out the door and opened her umbrella.

"Is that umbrella supposed to look like a giant leaf?" Sesshoumaru asked in disbelief, willing to accept that Izayoi was receiving help even if he wasn't the one to offer it.

"Kelly hasss her quaint little affectationsss," Cheryl hummed as she moved around Sesshoumaru to step behind the desk and cover Kelly's duties. "I sssuppose it would only be polite to prepare that infantile woman warm tea as well."

"As this Sesshoumaru is uncertain of the water resistant properties on those bags, tea is likely to be the only warmth she will receive until her current garments dry and she has a chance to lay out the clothing packed in those cases," he replied carefully. Once again he was alone with a spider out to cure him of a character flaw discovered nearly a decade ago. From his conversations with Kagome, he knew Cheryl was incredibly tenacious.

"Hmph!" the spider grunted as she set some water to heat and drew out a porcelain tea cup and Styrofoam coffee cup. Sesshoumaru needed no explanation to know which was meant for his mate. They both glanced outside to Kelly and Izayoi. Somehow the little receptionist had rallied the former princess into actively working to drag the Taishou luggage under the carport and out of the roadway. He wasn't sure how the little female had managed to motivate Izayoi away from tears. That is, if she had. It wasn't impossible to move luggage while leaking tears. "I don't know if she'll manage to get the ussslesss excussse for a woman to come back inside," the spider commented. "It'sss amazing Kelly accomplished that much."

Sesshoumaru nodded his agreement. "This Sesshoumaru would give much to know how she did it."

"Bit of a cry baby is she?" Cheryl sniffed with disdain. "Emotional blackmail can be an effective tool, but not when it is the only tool in a female's arsenal and thus overused."

Sesshoumaru shrugged as he watched the interaction between the two females outside. Kelly kept switching her umbrella from one hand to the other in effort to offer Izayoi some shelter from the rain while lifting one end of each bag. The luggage wasn't so large as to need two people to move, but Izayoi wasn't usually required to lift anything heavier than a pair of chopsticks and a champagne flute.

Even from the lobby of SIMHH, Sesshoumaru could tell Izayoi was being difficult. Kelly's smile remained bright and cheerful but the Japanese woman kept shaking her head and hunching her shoulders stubbornly. Despite this proof of dissent, Kelly successfully got Izayoi and her possessions moved from the emergency lane and under the shelter of the carport near one of the support pillars standing on the far side of the covered area. "How does she-?"

"Kelly's breed use a form of minor suggestion," Cheryl answered. "They are not particularly powerful when pitted against other youkai, so they've learned to master what youki they do have to deflect stronger opponents from attacking them. It is a subtle use of energy that most do not ever detect. I don't know if Kagome is even aware of it."

Sesshoumaru thought back on various conversations with his mate that referred to Kelly's abilities and behavior. "Hn," he hummed speculatively. It was clear that if Kagome wasn't aware of the receptionist's special skill, it had not been used to her detriment. He doubted very much that the doctor would care all that much.

"They do not resort to full on coercion or subverting another's will, they just block violence against themselves or even in their general vicinity as an option," Cheryl went on. "I still think it's creepy. I don't know why spiders inspire more fear than carrion eaters that mess with your head."

Sesshoumaru was confused for a moment as to just what the arachnid would mean. There were plenty of species that would consume the flesh left behind by greater predators. There were even true predators that would do the same. AS it was in the animal kingdom, the same held true in youkai breeds. Instinct was the same; it was sentience that prevented blind action based on those primitive urgings. Kelly smelled insectoid to Sesshoumaru's nose, but that didn't give away her specific breed. Most insects would feed on the dead. Even butterflies.

Sesshoumaru blinked his eyes as he figured out which insect would most disgust a spider. Spiders in nature fed on all insects, but it was when they fed on the brightly colored distractions that were butterflies that they tended to get the worst of people's opinion.

"There'sss a whole colony of the little bugsss sssettled in the sssurrounding area. The town acceptsss them even though new onesss show up fully adult looking and ssseemingly related to all the othersss in town," Cheryl rolled her eyes before carefully measuring out Kagome's favorite tea mix into her cup. She fished out a disposable tea bag for Izayoi's cup before pouring hot water into both. The styrofoam cup received a lid while Kagome's partnered up with a delicate looking spoon resting on the saucer. Sesshoumaru almost smiled at the disparate amount of care taken for the two women. Cheryl hid nothing of her opinion of each with her actions and probably saw nothing wrong doing so.

"Naturally," Sesshoumaru responded to her words. Butterflies spent their respective formative years as a mostly worm-like creature that survived off a careful mix of supplied roughage. They would not appear in society until adulthood when they mastered the energies required to show a human face and apparently the skills needed to deflect the inherent distrust the residents of a relatively small town would have for newcomers. "Are they all related?"

"Mossst of them," Cheryl condescended to answer. "There are a few who follow the traditional migration patternsss and they tend to bring in an influx of new comersss for the more ssstationary onesss to meet and breed with. It is a new world." By which she meant that while the humans had grown more mobile, most youkai had grown a bit more sedentary. There were new borders and laws and cities breaking up the landscape for youkai. Humans had grown and expanded the spaces they occupied so much that the old paths were grown broken and difficult to adhere to. "Kelly will have that disssgracsseful excussse for a woman in hand and headed back to town in no time. Her cousssin drivesss the shuttle."

"This Sesshoumaru is surprised there are not more of her kin attached to the institute," for youkai butterflies were rarely found alone in the world.

"There are more," Cheryl glared at him. "They prepare the food." Which Sesshoumaru knew from discussion with Kagome, the spider refused to eat. "They handle sssterilizing the linensss," which was a big job for any hospital, especially one who didn't have facilities on site yet. Kagome intended to have them added on with the next planned expansion set to be built once the ground warmed up. "And many worked on the building crew that gave usss SssIMHH."

"At your suggestion," Sesshoumaru declared, displaying his knowledge.

"They are not bad in their way," Chery answered stiffly.

"And this Sesshoumaru is not wholey evil either," he took the opportunity to point out. "I hurt Kagome," he bit the bullet and brought up the topic Cheryl had intended to harangue him about himself. "I was young and ignorant, unwanted by my alpha and an inu isolated from pack. I was chemically imbalanced," by more than just the alcohol he'd regularly imbibed. "I retain some flaws, but I am not so young and ignorant. I am not isolated from pack since housing Inuyasha and his mate and no longer pursue the reckless paths that lead to the damage I caused this Sesshoumaru and Higurashi Kagome. I cannot undo what was done and in many ways I cannot regret all that has come about because of it. I hurt Kagome, but in hurting her, she saved me. And I will strive to atone for that by using all the means available to me _because_ of her care."

"How can you-"

"This Sesshoumaru is not perfect," he interrupted her. "I can regret that Kagome had to be hurt, but I cannot wish to undo all that has been done because she is the most important person to this Sesshoumaru. More important than my pack, more important than my own life. To live without her has been torture, to be unable to offer her comfort has been pain. I will never do anything that will lead to such pain and torture again. It has hurt this Sesshoumaru but it was more painful to know it hurt her too."

Cheryl stared at him surprised and disbelieving but aware that he wasn't lying. The words weren't practiced in hopes of impressing her or declared to forestall her acting on her anger for Kagome's pain. They were stated plainly as fact. She could do him physical damage and he would accept it, but nothing she did would hurt him as much as hurting Kagome and she would never willingly do that. "Fine," she huffed. "I get it. You two cannot be sssevered from each other, even if you don't dessserve her." Sesshoumaru nodded. "She has decided to give you thisss chancsse and I will sssupport her." He nodded again. "I will ssstill give you hell when I sssee you, but never when it will dissstress Kagome."

"This Sesshoumaru thanks you," the inu bowed his gratitude.

"Papa-Sesshoumaru," Rin careened into view from the opposite hallway as before. Sesshoumaru caught her up again and held her tight. He scented her properly this time with no distractions. He knew her smell, had known it practically since her birth by virtue of a steady stream of blankets and gifts received from his mate to insure it. Still, sampling it from the source was a new experience.

Rin had always carried the green edge of clover in her scent, there was a spike of pine native to the local forests and some other notes of growing plants mixed in. He knew from Kagome that the little Coyote like to roll in any sweet smelling weeds found in the cleared grounds around their home whenever she wasn't at SIMHH. He caught the elements of her mother's shampoo and body wash, smiling as he remembered her demand to use the same as her mama. Kagome had laughed over the story while remembering the pup's first encounter with the soaps in the bathroom.

Rin likewise scented him, snuffling against his chest to draw him deep into the instinctive memory of her canine brain. Her small arms tightened as she tried to lift herself higher against him and he raised her to nuzzle against the crook of his shoulder.

After a few long moments of father and daughter simply existing in touch and scent like they'd never been able to before, Katarin's inquisitive mind broke the spell and leaned back in her father's arms. "Where's that silly inu?"

"The dog was ejected," Cheryl announced, bringing their attention to the spider standing beside them. Neither had noticed her move from behind the desk holding a cup of tea in each hand. Rin wouldn't have noticed because she loved the spider like an incredibly sarcastic but doting aunt. Sesshoumaru had been so engaged with the reality of holding his pup, of hearing her heart beat, and feeling her breaths puff against his neck he hadn't cared what the spider was doing. Besides, being inside SIMHH made one feel incredibly safe from attack and injury. Hadn't the spider and Kagome already proven that aggression, violence, and threats were quickly handled without return violence and removed without danger to the other occupants?

"He was bad?" Rin stared up at her papa.

Sesshoumaru shook his head, "Not bad, just not well behaved." Cheryl snorted derisively but didn't say anything. "Not everybody had as wonderful a mother as you do. They weren't properly taught about good behavior and did not think to learn on their own later in life."

"Did you never meet your grandmother?" Cheryl asked with curiosity.

"This Sesshoumaru's grandfather said she died shortly after producing the litter that contained my father. My grand sire was devastated by her loss and nearly followed her into the afterlife. His weakness caused a time of violence where many youkai attacked the clan. Many pack members were lost. My father's older siblings and most of his litter mates died during that time. There wasn't much time to focus on behavior outside of combat situations. My grandfather often regretted that proper peacetime behavior was neglected in my father's childhood," Sesshoumaru shrugged. "Hiroyuki should have learned better manners once the time of violence ended, but because the lesson was not forced on him he did not see a need."

"Is that sad?" Rin asked unsure whether she should sympathize with the youkai or not.

"In some ways," Sesshoumaru allowed. "There are some joys this one's father will not easily understand but in other ways, no. He is not helpless and he is not dead. He can learn anything he applies himself to. That he was not brought up to behave that way does not make it impossible for him to learn. There is always choice."

"Maybe, but he won't be let back on the groundsss any time sssoon," Cheryl announced smugly. "The rulesss are pretty sssolidly enforcssed."

Sesshoumaru smiled, "As they should be. Breech of trust should not be easily forgiven when the lives of children are at stake."

Rin's eyes went big, "He spiked his youki?" She had experienced what happened the last time that happened.

"We took care of it," Cheryl assured her quickly. "I imagine your mother will be checking on everybody to make certain."

"After she changes clothing and cleans up," Sesshoumaru added. "She will likely also take Dr. Kuromaki around to introduce him to everyone and their special needs at the same time."

"Who is Dr. Kuromaki?" Cheryl demanded.

"Dr. Miroku is a classmate of mama's," Rin announced, proud in her greater knowledge. "He came with Uncle Inu and will be staying a few days."

Sesshoumaru nodded before glancing down to the pup held snugly in his arms. "Do you know why?"

"Lacey tol' me," Rin nodded sharply. "Her daddy serves in the military and gets called away for long times. Whenever he comes back her mommy and daddy have to spend time together alone. Because of the bond," she added.

"I thought Lacey was in quarantine," Cheryl looked startled.

"Rin talked to her through the glass," Rin rolled her eyes. Rin was well versed in the necessary protocols involved with contagious disease. She didn't always like to adhere to them, but she would never endanger her friends by breaking them. "Her mommy agreed with her so I know she's right. Papa-Sesshoumaru and mama both love Rin, but they need to spend time together because of their bond. Rin will stay here and protect SIMHH."

"Hn," Sesshoumaru smiled fondly at his pup. The wisdom of the world learned from other children was sometimes remarkably astute while maintaining a profound innocence about what things truly meant. "Keep a special eye on Inuyasha. He is less sensible than others and never been ill before. He will not know how to go about getting better."

Rin agreed, "Mama says the type that have never been ill are the ones who misbehave most while ill. They don't understand that sitting still helps them get better faster."

"She is right," Sesshoumaru gently pressed the hair back from her face. "We must find something to distract us until Inuyasha is ready for another visit and Kagome is ready to spend time with just this Sesshoumaru."

"We can go into the play room," Rin suggested. "Rin could read to you."

"Or this Sesshoumaru could read to you," was his counter offer. They would have the place to themselves since most of the other patients had been cautioned to stay in their rooms. Cheryl would read to each in their own rooms rather than miss story time once Kelly could return to her post and tea was delivered to both intended recipients.

A glance outside informed him that Kelly had returned to the door to accept the warm tea for Izayoi before retreating to hand it off to the woman hunched over her newly moved bags. His father's mate still looked pathetic, but now her misery wasn't placed in quite such an inconvenient location. Kelly returned to her desk, shaking her umbrella out before returning to whatever task had occupied her before Taishou Hiroyuki had proved her character judgment accurate.

Cheryl disappeared into the inner halls of SIMHH with her chosen children's book and Kagome's cup of tea without throwing any further comments at Sesshoumaru.

"I'm glad you two resolved whatever her beef was," Kelly smiled at him.

"Hn," Sesshoumaru offered in acknowledgment before hugging Rin tighter to his chest. "It is but a temporary armistice to be returned to at every future meeting."

"Yeah," Kelly agreed. "Cheryl is stubborn like that. Can't say I completely disagree. Dr. H. is special to a lot of people, we never want her to feel pain." The butterfly picked up the outgoing mail box and set it on the higher surface of her desk near the door. The shuttle that brought the food and ran the staff to and from town also picked up the mail. Kagome saw no reason for the staff to drive out when they all slept in the same dorm in town. Most of the staff were satisfied with the policy at present.

The four shift leads were the only staff whose hours were irregular enough as to warrant personal transportation. They were also the only ones beyond Kagome, Kelly and Cheryl who were permanently attached to SIMHH. The junior nurses actually took on six month rotations at the institute for program credits or refresher experience in sterile practices. Despite the less than glamorous location and somewhat stringent protocols, the option to work at SIMHH was fairly popular. There was currently a two year waiting list to get in, but most nursing programs out of San Francisco would cut time off the overall certification program for a single stint out here. Many of the major hospitals in the region considered a six month position at SIMHH to be the holy grail of nursing resume builders. Knowing how to handle the hanyou condition was spreading faster through the nursing profession than any other health care provider and nurses who left SIMHH had a solid, practical grasp of sterile protocols and patient care.

There was a bit of a rough transition at the beginning of each six months where the shift leads took on a portion of the current crop of junior nurses and ran them through rigorous training for about a week. Current patients with sensitive care were attended by the shift nurses and Kagome alone until they felt the new bunch were capable of caring for them correctly. Teddy was purported to love the second week of each term. He got to meet so many new people. Rin was ever watchful of them until a month had gone by and she could start to trust the health of her good friends to the new comers. Sometimes they ran across a nurse they had to send back, like the one who'd given Teddy a cold a year ago.

Luckily, they were three months in right now. Solidly experienced nurses under the direction of very strict shift leads would keep SIMHH running smoothly in Kagome's absence. Sesshoumaru grinned secretively down at his pup. It was a good thing because Kagome wasn't going to be available even for emergencies for the next several days.

"We'll be in the play room should Inuyasha be approved for another visit," Sesshoumaru gently told the receptionist before carrying Rin into the brightly decorated room designed by Maxwell-sensei. He'd seen pictures of it, since his mate had been so pleased with the end result. It truly was a very welcoming place.

"Rin will show you her favorite book," the coyote squirmed for him to let her down before racing to the built in book shelves to select the colorful rectangular object from its brethren. She drew him into the bean bag corner and curled up over his stomach in his lap before cracking the story open. She grinned up at him to announce the title and they settled in to wait.


	58. Canvas Sky

hurray! life moves on. Work has been better this week, thank you all who expressed concern over last week.

This is not the chapter you are looking for. Read along...

Calendar: late March

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Canvas Sky**

Kagome was feeling a little run over. After the headache of ejecting Taishou senior and having to clean up in the scrub shower while trying to ensure the still perverted Kuromaki Miroku didn't peek, her day continued to run full speed ahead. She had to run Miroku through all the current patients and their immediate health needs. In the spirit of efficiency, she was introducing him to the staff and touring him through the facility at the same time. It was needlessly taking longer than it should as he kept pestering her about personal information that wasn't pertinent to the current situation.

And the constant guilt trip over not keeping up with her former classmate and his wife was not appreciated.

"So is there someone special in your life that we haven't heard about?" Miroku attempted to pry the information out of her for the third time. And Kagome was more than a little perturbed. She wasn't about to veer off into that territory after she'd already pointedly steered him away from it two times before.

"This is not leisure time, Miroku," Kagome growled at him. "I'm trying to get you up to speed so I can go fulfill a personal obligation and you're stalling for gossip?"

"We're friends, Kagome," Miroku glared at her. "Friends know more about each other's current lives than where they work and what progress they've made in their career."

"If you don't watch it, you'll be taken quite out of the friend category and catapulted into nuisance and menace to society," Kagome grumbled in annoyance. "Besides which, now is not the time. You're here to cover my patients and take care of any new comers in the next few days. You need to know how to handle Teddy's seizures in the very real possibility of him catching either of the two contagious diseases currently housed in the institute. You need to know how to handle Marta's anxiety if she happens to get put in a situation where it spikes again. You need to know which of the nurses to go to if you need to adjust a schedule or need more people on a shift. You need to know what days of the week Kelly is going to be covering the front desk and when Cheryl's story time is with the kids." Kagome sighed haltingly before continuing. "You need to know how to install the new anti pollution beads and the youki suppression beads on new cases. You need to know where my notes are and how to read the abbreviations. Anything personal is irrelevant right now."

"But Kagome," Miroku whined. "You never talk to us anymore. We used to know everything that was going on with you."

"You did not," Kagome huffed. Whatever Kuromaki tried to believe, he and Sango had never been that close. They were too active and too involved in their own dealings to really pay attention to her. Hell the first time anyone outside her own family had learned she was a miko was Sesshoumaru. That proved they weren't really that close. "Stop trying to guilt me into delving into unnecessary topics of discussion. You and Sango were never privy to every aspect of my life. You both thought I was boring as hell and too dull to find a lover of my own."

"We did not think you were dull!" Miroku protested "We were just worried you weren't putting yourself out there."

"I wasn't," Kagome declared rather pointedly. "I had bigger priorities and no time. It wouldn't have been fair to anybody else to subject them to a relationship that either ended abruptly when I left Japan or remained long distance for years after that without break."

Miroku gaped. He clearly hadn't thought of that. "But you didn't know you were going to be leaving in high school," he protested after a moment. "You shut down any and all overtures for romance without second thought."

"How do you know I didn't put any thought into it? And there wasn't anybody worth getting involved with in high school," Kagome returned blandly. "If you recall, most of the boys in our school were more interested in who they could nail than in relationships."

"Not all-"

"And the small percentage who weren't looking to get into every girl's pants were so focused on their efforts to get into a good college they couldn't be paid to be interested in anything else." Kagome cut him off. "Even you were a wild animal hunting after the occasional floating skirt. It drove Sango crazy."

"I wasn't that bad," Miroku sputtered indignantly.

"You used to keep a list of girls you wanted to nail written down the length of your arm," Kagome reminded him flatly. "Some of them weren't even in high school age yet and several were teachers and idols."

"Oh yeah," Miroku blinked and then grinned in nostalgia before shaking himself roughly into the present. "It was just an empty list."

"I know that," Kagome agreed, "you did it to get a reaction out of people, just as I know most of the other horny boys were remarkably unsuccessful in their endeavors too. The point was that I was hardly likely to find them worth the time away from trying to decide how I was going to go about getting here," she raised her arms to take in the building around them. "I was out to save lives, a high school romance seemed rather inconsequential in comparison."

"You were seventeen," Miroku scoffed. "I doubt you thought it out that clearly." Most teenagers wouldn't have, but he seemed to forget that Kagome had never been average. He may have been focused only on the next possible female to hit on and avoiding Sango's jealous violent reaction, but the shrine daughter turned hanyou medical specialist had more complex plans at seventeen.

"Miroku," Kagome glared at him. "How often have you known me not to plan things out and aim for long term goals?" They had known each other since early childhood and her juvenile impulsivity had been controlled early under her grandmother's secret miko training. Miroku and Sango and the rest of their classmates had been allowed the luxury of impetuous behavior. Kagome had to limit the chances of being discovered for what she was. Other classmates were occasionally more likely to think before acting to varying degrees based on personality traits and parental discipline, so Kagome had by no means stuck out from her peers in that way, but the fact that Miroku would completely disregard her behavior and personality at seventeen was insulting. It also proved just how unobservant he could be when laboring under hid own limiting beliefs.

"Weren't you ever afraid you'd wind up alone?" Miroku demanded, expressing the same concern that Sango had thrown at Kagome when trying to set up blind dates.

"That was never one of my fears, Miroku," Kagome declared abruptly. "I'm not afraid to be alone. I'm afraid to fail. I'm afraid to let down my patients, because failure in this setting results in death rather than unhappiness. There's no recovery from that." She turned sharply from him to continue on with the task she'd been attempting to complete before his latest attempt to dig up more personal information. "Now can we get back to introducing you to the patients. I want them to still be alive when I get back."

"You still haven't said whether or not you're seeing anyone right now," Miroku pointed out.

"You're like a gossipy old hen," Kagome grit her teeth tightly. "The point of the matter is that I'm not required to delve into my personal life for you. Our friendship was never built on me talking and you listening. It was always the other way around with the both of you." As much as people would like to think otherwise, it was often a one way communication amongst childhood friends. There were those who confided and those who were confidants. In an ideal world the two roles were reciprocal and evenly performed by all members of a friendship. But nobody is perfect as a child, teenager or even an adult. Friendship could be lopsided and uneven and it was often difficult to tell the truth to the ones who talked the most.

"That's not true," Miroku reflexively denied for both himself and his wife.

"No?" Kagome stared at him measuring just how much he'd deluded himself to think that. "Really? Name one thing I told you in confidence. One incidence where I complained to you about a situation that wasn't of your own making."

"I-" Miroku began and stopped abruptly. "There was-" his brow creased in confusion.

"Now if you can let all that go, we can get back to introducing you to Lacey. Lacey will probably come down with pneumonia same as Inuyasha. She was brought in presenting symptoms of measles. The rash had mostly dissipated before she was transferred from the hospital in San Francisco. You'll get patients from them occasionally. Hanyou usually head for the closest medical institution in their immediate area. Most regional hospitals will stabilize them and transfer them here. It generally gives the Institute a two day warning for most issues. Farther out we'll get calls for consultation. I'm on constant consult with a hospital up in Toronto, as they have three patients that are and have been too unstable to move. My notes are where I showed you in the office."

"Lacey's in here," Kagome tapped lightly on the glass before switching on the intercom from the outside. "She's still suffering under a fever but we expect that to ease up without too much trouble. She's a very well behaved patient and a joy to have around. You shouldn't be called on to do much for her. There are four nurses currently assigned to work just her case and no one else's. Inuyasha is set up with the same because we don't want either infection to spread through the patients. None of them have been vaccinated yet."

"Dr. H." Lacey smiled dazedly. The half mustang was huddled in a large ball in the middle of every blanket on her medical bed. The staff knew to have a few extra at the ready since Lacey was so tall the standard blankets simply weren't long enough. The beds weren't long enough either, but the female didn't seem to mind her hooves overhanging the end. That's if she bothered to stretch out. Mostly Lacey preferred to curl and hunch and take up as little space as possible. "I thought you were going to get the new guy settled in."

"I've done that Lacey," Kagome answered patiently. Lacey's temperature was higher than Inuyasha's and she seemed to lose track of time going on around her. The beaded suppression necklace lay over the bed from her neck except where Lacey had threaded it through her fingers.

Kagome had ordered the nursing staff to prolong Lacey's youki suppression hoping they could fight the fever down before having to release it. The female's occasional loss of awareness was worrying though. "When was her temperature last taken?" she questioned the nurse currently inside the room.

"It was 102F an hour ago," Hakkaku answered mildly. "I was just preparing to check it again before calling in Carol to help Lacey's mom give our girl a soak."

"She shouldn't be having such trouble keeping track of things," Kagome thought aloud to herself after insuring she wouldn't be overheard inside the room. Lacey's mom looked a little frazzled. "When was her last dose of acetaminophen," was sent inside to Hakkaku's ears.

"At eleven," he replied before walking closer to the window and raising an eyebrow at Kagome through the glass before pointedly moving his eyes to the male standing behind her. "I was about to administer a half dose in hopes of upping its effectiveness," Hakkaku continued, though his voice sounded tinny and more distant given the greater range from the receiver by the bed.

Kagome nodded before turning to the side to administer introductions. "This is Dr. Kuromaki. Miroku," her gaze became stern as she tried to catch his eyes. "This is Hakkaku, one of my four lead nurses. He's heading up the team caring for Lacey, so he'll be unavailable for other patients, but he can answer questions and help adjust staff schedules if necessary. Hakkaku came down from Canada for this opportunity. He and Lacey both were here for the opening days of SIMHH." She turned back to the window to try and see if Lacey was still awake enough to pay attention. "Lacey?"

"She's fallen asleep again," Lacey's mother answered as she smoothed the blankets over the sick teenager. "The beads take a lot out of her. But they're so much more convenient than those pieces of paper you had to use last time."

"Mrs. Massey?" Kagome's tone was questioning.

"I'm not worried Dr. Higurashi," the woman smiled at Kagome. "You got us through chicken pox and you'll get us through measles. The wolf probably won't sleep a wink trying to run the whole place until you come back."

"Yes, he does try to take on more than his share," Kagome smiled at the sheepish youkai trying to walk coolly away from the window. "Anyway, this is Dr. Kuromaki. I imagine he'll check in periodically but it shouldn't effect you or Lacey's care over much. You're in good hands."

"We know," came the mother's brave reply. "We could never be more grateful that you started this place. I'm so thankful that by the time my baby needed someone to know how to help her you were already there. We're lucky and everyone else to have hanyou after this are lucky too."

Kagome blinked rapidly to control her reaction, watching as Mrs. Massey nodded at Miroku and he exchanged the silent greeting. It always got to her when her patients and their families expressed how they felt about SIMHH and about her. She shook her head and lead him down the hall towards the last patient in the institute. The one he already knew but still needed to meet so that he could see how the suppression beads were keyed and installed.

In hopes of preventing another effort to segue into her personal life, Kagome filled the hall with the general practice concerning medications in the institute. "We use the smallest dosage that's effective on our patients once their youki is suppressed. Most haven't been exposed to artificial compounds in their purely human state and therefore are very sensitive as a result."

"That's a good practice," he nodded before opening his mouth to say something else.

Kagome quickly cut him off, "Lacey's case often requires some trial and error to find an effective dose as her body mass is a bit greater than most of the rest of our patients. We generally try to use more mechanical means whenever possible. Such as in Teddy's case. His seizures are usually a direct result of abrupt change in his body temperature. The fastest way to stabilize him is with a temperature stable bath. We've worked hard to teach his body the best youki suppression cycle for stability, but any ailment that causes a fever will throw it off. Energy spikes will do the same thing in the opposite way. The shift leads know well how to handle it, but with the nursing staff stretched as far as it currently is you may wind up having to assist. Hakkaku cannot attend any patient outside of Lacey until we are certain she is no longer contagious. Judith will be covering most of the nights until the staff is freed from these added precautions. Connor will be here during the day and his hanyou charge will be with him. All shift leads will be working longer hours. Percy cannot be left alone that long."

"Your head nurse brings his child to work with him?" Miroku was surprised.

"Percy is a former patient," Kagome explained. "His advent to SIMHH came with permanent injury. He cannot hear and while he is in the process of relearning how to do things he used to use his hearing for, he is not completely versed in everything he needs to know in order to assume temporary independence. His school is on break this week. It's either he come here where his friends Rin and Teddy can keep him company or get left with a minder who won't fully understand him."

"I have not met a patient Rin," Miroku observed.

"Higurashi Katarin is not a patient," Kagome informed him. "She's a coyote pup who has the full run of the building. She'll be keeping an eye on you and probably spending time with Inuyasha. He's the only patient she doesn't know."

"Higurashi? Your-"

"She is my pup," Kagome smiled, before explaining. "She's grown up around my patients and SIMHH. The patients and most visitors enjoy having her around because most of the children that get brought in are kept here for a prolonged amount of time. She helps them develop good social skills and keeps everybody engaged in the work of living. It's Rin-chan's self-appointed job to make friends with everybody and she takes it very seriously. Even if I could include her in my private obligation, she would insist on staying here. She always spends the first few days with the new patients. They are new pack to her after all."

"The child treats every patient the same?" Miroku asked.

"Of course not," Kagome shrugged. "There are some she likes better and spends more time with. It's not really work with her so much as just making friends. As long as it causes no harm to either her or my patients, there's no reason to interfere. When Rin's not here, the patients and their family ask after her worried she's become ill or suffered an injury. She's like family to more than just me and that makes being sick so much better for some hanyou."

"Doesn't she get under foot and interfere with patient care?" Miroku couldn't help but ask. It was so far beyond his experience of working in a hospital with patients that he couldn't believe the small pup wasn't a source of trouble.

"Rin knows how to get out of the way when we need to work. She's been around SIMHH and children in patient situations since before she could assume a humanoid form," Kagome shook her head. "Not even the new nursing shifts have a problem with her as more often than not she's helping them find the things they need for every task. She knows the protocols and follows them with little need for reminder. She knows how to scrub in though we generally don't allow her to. She can find absolutely every consumable in the building, from bandages to thermometers. If you manage to get on Rin's good side she will keep you from blundering too much."

"So he was right," Miroku muttered so softly Kagome wondered if she'd heard him right. "So does this amazing child of yours have a father in her life? You know, a special someone to share the joys and tribulations of child rearing," he reverted back to the topic she had shut down four times. How many times did she have to say he didn't need to know before her "friend" would accept she didn't want to talk about it, not with him and not right now.

A sharp slapping sound from inside the window they were approaching caused Kagome to jump slightly in alarm before both drew their attention to the patient on the other side of the glass. Inuyasha was clearly disturbed about something as he waved wildly at the window and at them. Kikyou was trying to press him back into the bed from the tense position he'd adopted to throw – Kagome glanced a the floor to check – his previous subjugation beads at them. Paulette was trying to keep his gesticulating arms from dislodging his IV with one hand clamped tightly to the port in his arm and the other trying to keep the stand from falling too far away.

Kagome rushed to flick the com to receive so they could figure out what had so upset her patient.

"-atever shit you're doing you need to stop harassing Kagome!" Inuyasha's voice came through crackling at a decibel the speaker had trouble projecting.

"Inuyasha calm down, this isn't good for you," Kikyou cried. Inuyasha was turning blue in places as he fought his own body to make his point heard.

"Inuyasha stop," Kagome demanded impotently from her side of the glass. If it was needed, she would go inside, but then she would be unable to look after her other patients even after she and Sesshoumaru were ready to return to her public life. She forgot to flip the switch, but it didn't matter. The message was short and clear.

"He needs to stop bothering you!" Inuyasha hollered. "If Miroku can't behave properly, you kick him out or let me out of here to do it for you." The growl was clearly meant to be threatening, but all it did was send him into a coughing fit. "I don't know what you two are talking about, but he's definitely making it worse than needed."

"I was simply asking our friend here about her private life," Miroku placated the hanyou, flicking the switch the same as Kagome had shown him in the visit to Lacey's room.

"She's not obligated to tell you shit about herself," Inuyasha glared. "The wench never did before."

"You can't force that kind of disclosure from people," Kikyou added her support to Inuyasha now that he was properly settling down. "Higurashi-san has always been a private person, she rarely bothered to share her private goings on. There's no reason that would just suddenly change now. Less when you go about demanding it of her."

"But-" Dr. Kuromaki protested before Kagome cut him off.

"Kikyou-san I need you to come here and collect this," Kagome called her former schoolmate to the special delivery apparatus built into the wall. "Now watch what I do," she commanded Miroku as she took out a special pouch. She withdrew a set of beads and a piece of paper. "This is how we set the beads to activate them. The spells and energy are built in but dormant. It feeds off the youki of the subject once in place to maintain the suppressed state." The string of rounded patterned beads were strung on a long line about forty-five centimeters in length. "This is a longer set of beads than we normally use as he's a bit older and stronger than my other patients. Only Lacey has a strand so long," and it had taken two months before she'd been able to get that many together for the half mustang.

Kagome didn't know what was involved in creating and preparing the beads. She had bracelet lengths on hand for most of the children. As they grew older and the old set became insufficient, they were given another bracelet to wear. It was only the older and larger hanyou on first visit that received a full on necklace. Kagome had another one on order since this was the only one she had prepared.

"This," she took the slip of paper marked with the special symbols the medicine woman sent with it and wrapped it around the two ends jointly so that the strand became on continuous piece. "Is how we activate the spells. It is now ready for imprinting." She dropped the necklace into the drawer and pushed it into the wall. The air was evacuated out and sealed before the drawer was allowed to open on the inside. "Kikyou, I need you to add one drop of blood onto the paper before placing it around Inuyasha's neck."

"That's simple," Miroku pointed out. "I don't know why anyone else here couldn't do the same."

"They can't because only I have access and now only you will in the building," Kagome told him patiently. "Youki suppression has dangers that many would unscrupulously enjoy exploiting. It is why the spells are keyed to one person to take them off and put them on and only one hanyou can wear a strand once keyed." Kagome explained, trying hard not to sound patronizing. "If the general public got hold of the unkeyed beads, we'd have a serious issue. These are powerful enough to kill even the most powerful pure youkai since it feeds off their own youki to suppress their youki."

The noise Miroku made in response was a clear sound of sudden realization of his own stupidity. "How have they not already been made into weapons and used against the more oppressive factions?"

"Because nobody knows they exist," Kagome replied. "Every single method of youki suppression is very regional. The more famous ones are combative and do not feed on youki with the intent of mere suppression."

"Such as the miko offensive strikes and various sutra," Miroku offered to confirm his own understanding.

"Exactly," she shrugged as they watched Kikyou collar Inuyasha. The suppression was slow and interesting to watch. Abrupt change could be hazardous, gradual suppression was much gentler. The silver color of the half inu's hair slowly darkened to gray then further to the black probably gifted by his mother. Amber shifted to a muddy green to violet. The ear movement was probably the slowest progression, sliding slowly from their prominent position on the top of his head to the human position on either side over the course of fifteen minutes.

"Ugh," Inuyasha's face conveyed his sentiments without needing the sound. Most of Kagome's patients had a similar reaction. It certainly wasn't a pleasant experience, but it was necessary to heal them all from the human ailments they'd picked up.

"We find it best to treat most conditions as human ones after their youki has been suppressed," Kagome explained. "When I advise my colleagues in other countries, I don't tell them about the beads I use. I merely suggest they find a gentle way to suppress their patient's youki, carefully limiting the length of time of suppression, while treating the human disease."

"What do you do for patients that catch youkai ailments?" Miroku asked curiously.

"Amazingly enough, youki suppression for the hanyou who catch those is still the best treatment. Most youkai illness that hold a contagious element feed off youki. If you suppress their youki completely, you wipe out the disease and merely have to alleviate the remaining symptoms and leftover complaints," Kagome shrugged at him, eyes wide still with disbelief. "I couldn't believe it was that easy, but that's how it worked out."

"Hey, Kagome," Inuyasha called from behind the glass. "You about done with getting Miroku set?"

"You were the last patient," Kagome nodded. "I planned to let your brother back one more time for a short visit before leaving. I'll introduce you to Rin then too. She's probably attached herself to him the minute Marta was put down for a nap. She was so excited when I told her he was coming."

"The runt's going to have a complex regarding him," Inuyasha predicted.

"I'd rather you didn't call her runt to her face," Kagome sniffed. "References to her size or lack thereof are off-limits."

"I'll smack him if he fails to remember that," Kikyou promised as she glared at her mate. "If she develops a complex it'll be because of you giving her low self-esteem."

"Keh," Inuyasha looked at the wall away from Kikyou. "I'm an invalid here. You're not gonna let her abuse me are you?" he called to the doctors in the hall. Kagome merely shrugged. "That's harsh wench."

"Let me go get them," Kagome decided against responding to Inuyasha's complaints.

"Fine," Inuyasha huffed grudgingly and then started to cough.

Kagome waited patiently for him to finish, glancing pointedly at her nurse. Paulette checked the oxygen monitor before nodding sharply back at the doctor. Kagome sighed in relief before glancing at Miroku watching everything in his sharp way. Kuromaki had been the most observant of her friends. That is, when Sango wasn't around to distract him. He probably had known more of what was going on with her in high school than most of their fellows, but it wasn't because Kagome had told him anything.

"Fine wench," Inuyasha stated again. "But you better disappear immediately after!"

Kagome couldn't help but smile. Inuyasha could be volatile. It was even odds that he would be against letting Sesshoumaru disappear with her after such a prolonged lack of contact. Inuyasha had been possessive of her time once upon a time. He'd relaxed a bit as years rolled by and more hanyou fell into the net, but he'd always required at least some portion of time to himself at each meeting. She supposed this was the effect of having Kikyou as his mate. She'd tried to explain to him that he'd have to give his devotion to someone else some day. Kagome was glad Inuyasha finally got it.

"Stay," Miroku told Kagome. "I shall fetch Sesshoumaru and this coyote pup."

"Is that what he was bugging you about?" Inuyasha asked after he was certain Miroku was out of human ear shot.

"He just keeps trying to delve into things I've already redirected from four times," Kagome shrugged. "I'm trying to get him ready to watch SIMHH for a few days and he's trying to dig into personal stuff it took me years to tell my mother."

"Mama-Higurashi knows?" Inuyasha asked, his violet eyes incredulous as the matron hadn't let on.

"She doesn't know who it is," Kagome answered, her hand nimbly flicking the switch back and forth. "And I only told her that time she came to visit." And only because there was no avoiding it.

"You always were good at keeping your own counsel," Kikyou observed.

"Does anybody else know?" Inuyasha demanded. "Anybody back home?"

"Only if mama told somebody else," Kagome shook her head. "It's not like she could tell anyone who it is, though she may scrape together the means to get the whole family out here after this."

Inuyasha shuddered, "You think he'll live through it?"

"My mother is not that lethal," Kagome huffed in exasperation. "Yes, she can be scary as hell. Yes, she can lecture within an inch of your life. Yes, she wants to maim Sesshoumaru permanently, but she's not the one you really have to worry about."

Inuyasha's eyes widened in horror, "Ji-chan."

The daughter of a shrine nodded sharply. "Ji-chan," she agreed.

"What about Kagome's grandfather?" Kikyou asked, lost in their mutual fear.

"When Ji-chan decides on a thing, he never gives it up," Kagome replied gently. "With most people it would just be annoying because despite being so stubborn, most people stay in the realm of reason. Ji-chan will go far past that. Never underestimate old men, no matter how feeble or senile they may seem. They lived to get old, they know far more things than should ever be taken for granted. They fully understand their world and how to make it work for them." Kagome smirked at the hanyou cowering in his human form on the white sheets. "Inuyasha ran afoul of Ji-chan once. It took him two years to get back in his good graces far enough to save our hanyou friend."

"Old man don't play," Inuyasha shuddered. "At least this time I'll only have to watch."

"Don't be so sure Inuyasha," Kagome sang out to him. "You do share blood with the youkai who marked me."

The half inu flinched. "Let me know when they're coming, I'll take Kikyou on vacation."

Kagome smiled. "You can't run forever and the longer you put it off the longer you'll have to work to placate Ji-chan afterward." Inuyasha pouted and Kikyou brushed his hair out of his face. "But that won't be for sometime yet. I'll need you to watch you language while your here, Inuyasha. Most of my patients are children and you'll likely be visited by them. I don't get new patients all that often. When I do, they make sure to roll out the welcome mat."

"Bunch of brats," Inuyasha scoffed wearily, but there was a warm smile on his face.

"Rin will likely be your most common visitor. You're family after all," Kagome informed him quietly.

"Mom and dad?" the hanyou asked curiously.

"Your father attacked Sesshoumaru not five minutes after their visit to see you," Kagome shruged. "He will not be allowed back in the building. Your mother needs to figure out if she wants to come without him, after figuring out where she will stay if she doesn't follow her mate back home. Titus St. Clair sounded rather as if he were going to eject your father from even _his_ territory for his behavior."

"Is Sesshoumaru all right?" Kikyou asked, worry evident in her tone.

"I said he attacked, not that he was successful," Kagome smirked. "Cheryl prevented any contact between your father's outstretched claws and his target."

"Keh, good!" Inuyasha mumbled. His tone was low and Kagome could sense the lingering sadness in it. There was a hurt there that would likely never fully disappear. Izayoi and Hiroyuki were his parents and he'd wanted all his life for them to love him, care about him and prove it in some way that they always had. They'd lost his respect and probably all chances of being close, but that didn't stop the old wound from twinging with each new proof of their lack of care.

Kagome smiled gently at the hanyou drawing the blankets up higher under his chin. Rin would keep him cheerful and Kikyou would help him find happiness and the institute would help him get well. Life continued after all.


	59. Journey Home

We're getting there, we're getting there! It's funny. Half my reviews last chapter assumed I was going to drag it out more than I have, actually expressing joy at the prospect while the other half cursed me for dragging things out as long as I have already. What I don't get is why either outcome should be up to my reviewers?

You're going to be frustrated with me, I haven't finished the next chapter yet. I hope to finish it before you have a chance to miss it, but there are no guarantees. My life is running away from me right now, what with looking at houses, shopping lenders, preparing for my trip up North and looking into things for my HUGE trip next February. As I tell my occasional reviewer, RL comes first and if it gets in the way, then that' what happens. I don't pay you to read or review that's something you do in your free time, hopefully inspired by my AWESOME writing (I went there!) I don't get paid to write, this is something I do in my free time as inspiration moves me. When my free time is eaten up by RL the writing slows down, and it's been a rough few months. These are the months of change and as much fun as it is to live through my characters and explore their reactions and experiences, it's also important to go out and experience some things for myself. You should too!

Calendar: late March

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Journey Home**

Sesshoumaru's paws drummed out a steady rhythm against the soaked landscape passing under him. The rain had slowly eased since Izayoi had been safely deposited with her soggy luggage into the back of the shuttle heading for town. Instead of the punishing down pour at had been, it was more of a steady drip from the clouds passing over head.

On the open ground around the institute, puddles and mud had splashed up into his white fur, staining his under side an earthy brown color that matted the fur and squelched between his toes. Up here, some distance from the oddly shaped building, the ground hardened a bit in the tighter root system of stubborn tall grass and weeds that clung to the wind swept slopes of the hills.

Sesshoumaru was headed to the house his mate had built for them all.

The home was set on higher ground than the institute because the eventual honey comb was intended to grow outward rather than upward. Eventually SIMHH would sprawl over the grounds in three directions from the current start. He didn't now how large his mate believed it could grow, she'd started moderately small. But the lands purchased to hold her clinic were vast, as much to support growth as to maintain a wide buffer between the pollution sensitive patients and the wider polluted world.

The pack house was built on the side of a mountain. The property wasn't as extensive, but the grounds abutted a number of other youkai clans who were open to allowing a proper run through for the sake of sanity, neighborly good will, and healthy exercise. Some breeds couldn't share, but most were rational enough to know the difference between claiming territory and simply passing through it.

The kitsune lived to the west. Some tribal organization owned the peak itself, treating it as a nature preserve allowing the local youkai the run of it with impunity provided they left no damage to the natural inhabitants. There was no hunting, and while inu youkai loved to chase, he would find other ways to satisfy that instinct.

Kagome's long ago adopted siblings ran the length of the property lines often, helping to scent mark the property belonging to Kagome from the acres still belonging to the foxes she'd purchased the parcel from. The wolves had been the only youkai available to do it. With the arrival of the pack, those instinctive duties would be passed on to Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha. Though he had no intention of putting either Ginta or Hakkaku off the task before they left for Canada in a couple years. They had done the job admirably so far and there was no reason to oust them from it before their time.

Sesshoumaru paused to look back over the ground he'd crossed once he crested the top of the first hill. SIMHH was in sight from the front porch of the house though the house was not visible from the lower established clinic. The visibility of SIMHH from the house made it a perfect landmark and travel guide. The helipad in front of SIMHH kept in line with the water tower in town and the bridge beyond that would point the proper direction home. A human might not be able to see so far in weather like this, but golden eyes were perceptive enough to locate each point and ascertain his continued direction.

From this point on, his path would take him down into valleys and then back up again atop increasingly higher hills. Each dip would take him out of sight of his guides, but each crest would bring them back into sight again. Sesshoumaru wasn't worried about getting lost. He had plenty of time to beat his miko mate to the house. Where he could cut straight across the rough country on his four paws, she was limited by the roads available.

The distance from SIMHH to the house was a journey of little more than an hour as the youkai runs. The same trip by car, being required to adhere to paved roads and designated speed limits, took over two. Hence the reason he'd opted to find his own way once Kagome had completed her duties and allowed him to visit with Inuyasha once more. Sesshoumaru could have ridden in Kagome's car, transported in relative ease from SIMHH to their now shared home, trapped in a small space that smelled like her, fighting his instinct to touch and molest and love until they reached privacy. For two hours.

He just couldn't bring himself to submit to the torture of his clamoring instincts stoked higher by the scent of her in the car. Shield her personal scent as she might, the essence of her constant use had already marked the interior of the vehicle. Sesshoumaru would be surrounded by her scent with her in touching distance. For over two hours. His self control was great, but even he had a breaking point and he'd just as well not tempt fate or take the chances of an accident in the event he lost control and molested his mate while she was driving. If by some miracle they didn't wind up in a crash because he startled her in that fashion, they would likely get ticketed for public indecency because even a car on the side of the road was public.

Sesshoumaru shook his fur of the excess moisture before turning to head on in the designated direction.

Besides, Sesshoumaru needed the exercise and the opportunity to let off some energy. He'd been cooped up in the plane for nearly half a day. He'd been held stationary in wait at the clinic for several hours after that. He'd been kept just as staid in the hospital in Tokyo before all of that. He was antsy with anticipation and wired with too much energy where Kagome was exhausted after a full day of dealing with Sesshoumaru's parents and her patients and even the stressful prying doctor called in to be her temporary replacement.

Sesshoumaru was wound up tight. He was turned on by her treatment of Hiroyuki and Izayoi. He loved to hear her talk and the brief interaction she'd had with Rin before they'd departed had only increased his desire to see Kagome pupped. She was a better mother than she allowed others to say she was. She tried to do what was best for Katarin rather than deny her human limitations could do the pup irreparable harm.

There were things in the world that a willing heart couldn't conquer. A human born human would have human limitations. An apple couldn't be changed into an orange through education or strong will. It was an old lesson written down in ancient times, but forgotten with each new and improved succeeding world.

It was brave of her to acknowledge such a truth, and Sesshoumaru admired her courage. It was nothing new, he had admired his mate greatly through many years and for many thing. He knew without question she would treat all her children with such care, born of her body, adopted by her soul or doctored through her clinic.

His paws thrummed against the turf with his strength pushing closer to the end of this journey. He hoped he would arrive before Kagome did. While he had time to get lost and still beat her there, he would be absolutely filthy. Sesshoumaru chuckled to himself, an odd growling burble that rattled in his throat and went nowhere over the sound of the rain. He would also be completely naked, for he'd left his cloths at SIMHH.

There had been no way to carry them. His special pack had been sent on to the house with the latest round of luggage. It's safe transport was more important than being able to carry his clothes and personal electronics.

It would be ideal if he had enough time to wash up and find the clothes sent ahead. Sesshoumaru was fairly certain Kagome would be more comfortable when she arrived if he was fully clothed. Despite the distraction of settling Inuyasha into his room and dealing with Hiroyuki and Miroku, he could tell she was nervous for other reasons. It was in her voice and the way she very carefully avoided some topics. It was in her body language, so loud and clear that even unfamiliarity with reading her that way couldn't obscure the message.

He understood. Sesshoumaru was nervous too. The last time they'd been together, she'd disappeared. Fear of a repeat fluttered through his gut periodically no matter how he'd tried to distract himself. He controlled it, shoved it down deep, but couldn't completely eliminate the feeling.

Her nervousness had different reasons and was likely more overwhelming than his. He feared she would disappear afterward. Kagome's nerves were created by what happen before and during.

Sesshoumaru pushed himself harder, frustrated with how slow his progress became over the rougher terrain. On the flat grounds around SIMHH, he'd moved faster, without changing the pace of his breathing or straining his muscles beyond a warm stretch. The rugged ground was making it obvious how much two years trapped in Tokyo had robbed him of stamina and strength. At the top of each rise he would check his bearings before diving down the next depression. After a while of finding his direction unerringly spot on, he put it off to every other crest.

By the time he was checking the land marks at every third hill, Sesshoumaru found himself halfway up the tallest, steepest rise yet, when it suddenly flattened and opened onto a fairly clear setting with the home his mate built settled in the middle. A loop of gravel on the ground in front of the building marked the end of Rin's "flower" garden and an empty clothes line peeked out from behind the structure. The difference in ground height wasn't the only reason the house was obscured from view of the institute.

Sesshoumaru wasn't terribly certain where his mate first encountered her odd architectural options in her life. He knew she was big on minimizing her environment impact and given the ability to make the choices regarding a building from the ground up she would make choices to reflect that.

SIMHH had been required to adhere more to common modes of construction despite it's odd dimensions. It was strategically created for expansion with the opportunity of adding underground facilities if the need arose. Someday the hanyou Kagome saved would live long enough to have children of their own ad suffer all the difficulties and sensitivities that full youkai and human mothers experienced now. There was always the possibility they would come across a patient in a situation like Nonny's, unable to survive for long above ground and exposed to the polluted environment they could only escape behind earth and industrial air filters.

Their home had no other rules to follow beyond those set by necessity and basic living needs. AS such, it conformed to no preconceived notions about appearance, public opinion or the need to sterilize everything. The building appeared, from the outside to be a series of earthen mounds collected together so that they seemed to huddle together in the middle of an open space. In the winter the grasses and plants used to cover the soil insulation turned brown in the cold and frost. In the spring and summer, the vibrant living colors matched those of the native plants around it. From a distance, it would appear as a small hill amongst hills. A little closer and it looked like a door into a mound of grass and dirt.

After reading some European folk tales a few months back, Rin had dubbed it a fairy mound. Sesshomaru shook the excess water and loose mud from his fur before approaching the irregular shaped house. He knew that insects and birds flocked over the thing during the summer as the wild flowers burst with color from the sky lights currently out of view to the abrupt wall of ground on the sides. Kagome had told him the hum of life was almost constant while outside it. Her observation only let him know how wonderful the insulation was on the inside since no one heard buzzing or activity from the inside.

Sesshoumru shifted and wiped his hands against his belly, trying to divest them of the mud he'd picked up. A chilly misting rain remained from the earlier deluge, beading his torso and face with moisture. Stepping over to the wooden border of Rin's "flower" garden, Sesshoumaru dug the spare key out from where it was wedged in the joint of the western most corner of the bed. One would need prior knowledge of its location and strong, lengthy claws to dig it out of the crevasse made by the joined wood. It had been placed there more for Rin's benefit than anyone else's, but since he couldn't bring his own belongings with him, it's first use was at Sesshoumaru's need.

Once more trying to dislodge the dirt clinging to his long fingers, Sesshoumaru stuck the key into the lock and opened the door to his new home. The first breath filled his lungs with the scent of Kagome, Katarin, and the two wolves who lived here. It was a taste of home for all his days. In other circumstances, the scent of two males he'd never met would be a jarring note, one that would set a growl deep in his chest and throw his instincts in a fit. But knowledge kept it from being a problem. Both males had supported and protected his mate in their way and looked on his mate as the older sister she had always been. Their scents were also stale, indicating absence. The wolves were more recent inhabitants than Kagome. He figured she hadn't been back since he made the call, not that Kagome spent much time in her home under normal circumstances.

Maybe with the pack moving on site that would change. Her reasoning for staying at SIMHH was sound. It would take her too long to get to the clinic if an emergency arose. Ginta and Hakkaku could both get her there faster than by car, but neither were at home often enough to guarantee that route. Sesshoumaru would probably be a bit clingy for the next couple years. An absence would make it an instinctual reaction. Wherever Kagome was, he would be close by whether at the institute or here. He could get her there. He could get her there faster than running if the need was dire enough. He should probably make it routine to run or fly the route daily so that if the need ever arose he could meet it.

The last of his pack's luggage had been delivered to the house this morning and Kagome had told him Ginta was home to accept the bags before his classes. The suitcases stood just inside the door ready to be relocated to their respective homes. Opposite the bags and against the wall stood a row of shoe cubbyholes labeled with individual names. His already had a set of slippers in his size. The small proof of acceptance and anticipation of his arrival made him smile.

A stack of towels proved that the unmet Ginta had thought ahead enough to realize that everyone who came home was likely to be soaking wet. Sesshoumaru used one to wipe the worst of the mud from his skin before collecting a second to wrap around his hair. The long silver strands were soaked and muddy. There would be no cleaning it without a proper bath. But wrapping his hair prevented him from spreading the mess from his person. Keeping hold of the first soiled towel, Sesshoumaru grabbed his suitcase and attempted to follow the old scent of his mate to their new shared room.

It wasn't easy, Kagome's scent flitted towards most of the doors standing closed from view. He actually identified Ginta and Hakkaku's, and Inuyasha and Kikyou's rooms first. Sesshoumaru took a brief detour to place the waiting luggage in their room before moving on. One room he skipped since no one's scent entered it and he fourth room turned out to be Rin's. The collection of toys was fairly sparse and mostly from the coyote's infancy. The pup had little need of inanimate objects when she had friends to play with. The play room at SIMHH was equally limited on toys. There were plenty of books, some play dishes and age appropriate building blocks. Anything else were personal property supplied by family. The room was incredibly organized and clean indicating no one really spent much time here as well he knew. Rin slept with Kagome when they were home. And most of her play consisted of out door games and running with the wolves or kitsune next door.

Sesshoumaru made sure to shut all the doors behind him, leaving everything the way he found it and inspecting everything he touched for mud residue. HE very much doubted his mate would appreciate having dirt littering her clean home. Opening the door to Kagome's room was an experience. Her scent was strongest there from the amount of time spent wrapped in her slumber. Rin's scent was more recent, but when a youkai hunted for one scent, the presence of others wasn't much of a distraction. His body reacted and Sesshoumaru growled at himself petulantly before making a bee-line for the bathroom, eyes determinedly ignoring the rumpled blankets left on the futon in the center of the room. Most of the interior was sparsely furnished with the exception of personal bedrooms when the tenants had been able to voice preferences and opinions. There was a distinct Japanese flavor to the main areas by simple virtue of its versatility. Kagome hadn't wanted to make any bold expensive choices until everyone who would have to live with it was present.

Sesshoumaru ran a hot shower and used her soaps and shampoo. His were still packed, but he wouldn't have reached for them regardless. He wanted as much of her scent wrapped around him as he could get while she was still absent.

Sesshoumaru had a plan for how the evening would initiate. He'd warned her that he would be driven to love her until her scent changed to show conception. There was no preventing it, but the instinctive drive wasn't completely unmanageable. True he couldn't put it off indefinitely, but there were smaller ways for him to instinctively prove his worthiness to his mate that would ease into the part that made her so nervous.

In the wild, a male would prove he could provide for a potential mate and their pups by hunting and presenting a kill. A human mate would likely find that a bit upsetting and hardly impressive. She couldn't eat a fresh kill like a youkai could and their pups – except Rin – wouldn't be able to either. Instead, Sesshoumaru would prove his greater knowledge and ability to provide for her by preparing a meal that was both healthy and pleasant. He knew Kagome hadn't eaten and what she really needed was to spend some time with him in person without the threat that he would pounce.

He intended to make her comfortable, to put her at ease so that the end point of their evening would be more enjoyable for her. It cost him nothing but time and self-control to do this for her, but it was something Sesshoumaru was certain was needed. He was not an animal after all. He could control how and when he answered the demands of instinct. Within reason, his self-discipline had its limitations. Restraint was an important element to his future relationship with Kagome.

It all came back to instinct and his ability to negotiate its demands while protecting Kagome from any fall out. He would protect his mate and thankfully that was an instinct he could use against his other urges. The balance of self-denial while maintaining sanity would be tricky, but the effort was worth Kagome's well-being.

Just as Sesshoumaru was plating up his culinary creation taught by Nonoka Maxwell, Kagome's car pulled up in front of the house. He would have missed it if the kitchen windows didn't look out on to the loop because the inu heard absolutely nothing. Gently setting the dishes on the counter beside the stove, Sesshoumaru raced for the door to escort her in with an umbrella. The precipitation had picked up again in the last twenty minutes and he didn't think she needed a second soaking today.

"I see you made it," Kagome gasped out as they ran fro her car to the house. "Did you find the place okay?"

"The directions were simple and accurate," he nodded as she shook the water from her coat and hung it up above the shoe organizer. He set the umbrella to dry in front of the door before handing her a towel from the available stack. His efforts to minimize her exposure to the cold water, while effective were not sufficient to shield her completely. "You should go change into something warm and dry. I've made dinner." He made sure to lock the door before turning to face her.

"You cooked?" she sounded surprised.

"Hnn," he smirked before heading back to the kitchen to move his plated meal to the table. It was simple and colorful, with vegetables even he found palatable though he saved most of them for her serving. Inu dietary needs leaned more on protein than fiber, vegetables and such. He returned to the stove to add his cooking dishes to the dishwasher and wipe down the counters before adding his dish towel and pot holders to the load building in the washer. Living with Kikyou and Inuyasha had taught him to clean up after himself. Sesshoumaru had already gone around and cleaned up the bits of left over mud he couldn't avoid leaving behind.

"Sesshoumaru?" his mate called from the kitchen.

"In here," he called back, carefully shutting the lid on the washer before leaving the closet sized room to meet her before she could enter it.

Kagome was carrying her damp towels to add to the laundry, she'd changed into a light weight pajama set that covered her from neck to ankles. The soft material tempted him to reach out and find out how soft it really was. "I hadn't expected you to do laundry. Or cook."

"This Sesshoumaru is now a fixture and will perform a full portion of the chores," he replied mildly. He wasn't offended by her assumptions. She often complained that Ginta and Hakkaku both occasionally let things pile up on occasion when it came to laundry and dishes. "You needed something to eat and instinct drives this Sesshoumaru to prove worthiness by providing for your needs."

"But-"

"Please," he closed his eyes to hopefully avoid displaying the strain he was under on his face. "Feeding you answers instinct without pouncing on you."

"I-" she swallowed tightly. "I appreciate that."

"Please, sit mate," Sesshoumaru gestured to the dining room before extracting the towels from her hands. "Eat. You didn't eat lunch at the institute and will need to replenish your energy."

"Yeah," she sighed as the doctor slid under the low table. "This smells delicious!" Kagome enthused, clearly impressed with the provided spread of dishes. "I never seem to find time to eat during days like this."

"Hnn," Sesshoumaru noted the information as he added the latest towels to the wash and started it. "I imagine it wouldn't have been so difficult without your desperation to escape Kuromaki-san."

"I should have expected he'd act like that, the ass," Kagome pouted as she picked up her chopsticks and selected a tender bit of fish from the plate. She took a moment to savor the flavor on her tongue before continuing the conversation. "He was always like that when someone proved he didn't know as much as he thought he did about something. Observation is great, it helps to make him an effective doctor, but it won't tell him everything."

"It might be partly this Sesshoumaru's fault," the dog declared in an apologetic tone. "We exchanged words on the plane."

"No," Kagome shook her head as she pulled a bite from the bowl of grilled vegetables. Everything on the table was simply prepared as Sesshoumaru was merely an amateur cook, but what he did cook was well executed. "He would have been an ass no matter what you said to him. I've not been calling them very much and never with personal information."

"Do you not like Kuromaki and his wife?" Sesshoumaru asked purposely settling on the opposite side of the table. "I had thought you were friends at one point."

"I wouldn't necessarily call it friendship so much as being thrown together a lot growing up," Kagome shrugged as she continued to eat. "It's a bond like extended family, people your kind of stuck with for life but don't know very well or know better than you'd like. Sango and Miroku were just always around. I liked Sango better before she started trying to set me up on dates in high school. That feeling rather lingered beyond graduation enough for us to be roommates, but I did avoid spending a lot of time with her outside of meal times. She was always harping about her fear that I'd wind up alone."

"Hnn," the inu acknowledged her words as he delicately ate his serving of fish, golden eyes discreetly watching her move over the dishes with her chopsticks. Her hands fluttered from dish to dish and back again in a mesmerizing pattern he would eventually understand and memorize. "Kuromaki-san expressed a similar fear on your behalf despite his rather old information on the subject."

"Sango infected him," Kagome huffed. The pacing of the meal wasn't terribly slow or fast paced. The doctor took the time to taste every bite, reveling in the flavors passing over her tongue. She wasn't dragging it out, merely enjoying the meal she hadn't been required to fix herself. Sesshoumaru didn't try to hurry her along either, content to watch her eat even after he'd finished the snack he'd prepared for himself. "I hadn't known you knew how to cook."

"I do not often get the chance to practice," Sesshoumaru declared. "Kikyou controls the kitchen and she does not often care for company in her task."

"Is that why you said this was something Nonny taught you?" Kagome asked as she took a sip of the water he'd set out for her. There was juice also, but he'd pointedly left the wine where he'd found it. Their joining this time would be without chemicals lowering inhibitions or compromising cognizance. Later, after the shear amount of activity rendered even the most pleasurable motions painful, he would likely dose her as he'd warned her would happen, but the start and a significant portion of everything that followed would be completely free of outside stimulants.

"This Sesshoumaru made an effort to learn a few things about human nutritional needs. Nonoka's mate had developed some problems as they aged together because of a poor diet," the inu shifted comfortably to lean forward over the table. "It is likely Maxwell-sensei wouldn't have if he'd paid closer attention to his nutritional needs earlier." It was also possible that Max's various health issues wouldn't have happened at all if Nonny were healthier herself, but there was no point in voicing that probability. It couldn't be changed now. "The future is vast and full of possibilities. It is possible that some injury or illness on my part might allow something minor of that type to develop in you if we do not prevent it. Besides, This Sesshoumaru prefers to have and keep you as healthy as possible through means not connected to youki or reiki."

Kagome smiled softly at him in a way he rather hoped indicated pride and affection. Whatever it meant was left by the wayside as she finished the food he'd presented her and they both cleared the table, placing the dishes in the dish washer and starting it. "That was very good, Sesshoumaru. Thank you."

He smiled back at her before leaning forward to sweep a kiss over the apple of her cheek. Sesshoumaru thought it was rather adorable the way her hand clapped over the spot once he drew back and stepped away to place the rag he'd used to wipe everything down over the edge of the sink to dry. She'd moved on from the kitchen before he could turn back her way. "Kagome?" it was his turn to call, though he could follow his nose.

"By the door," Kagome called and he walked over to investigate what she was doing there. His mate was unearthing a box tucked into his labeled shoe cubbyhole. Sesshoumaru's eyebrows drew together in confusion as the oblong container seemed familiar for some reason. "I believe I promised to have these ready for you," she murmured as she removed the lid and lifted out a new chain and laminated dog tag. "It's been waiting for you, although," the female reached back into the shallow rectangle once he'd taken the chain from her. "It took so long for you to claim that one that I had time to make this one too." The second chain she lifted out of the box had a pair of metal dog tags, one had Katarin's name on it with an etching of a coyote howling at the moon and the other had Kagome's name and the origami crane marked with his symbol. "It's sort of a welcome home gift. Rin doesn't know I had it made or she'd be mad I didn't wait to give it to you when she was here."

Sesshoumaru squeezed the metal plates in his hand as emotion swept through him. Moisture collected and fell from his eyes before he reached for his mate and swept her up in passionate kiss. It took several minutes before he could let go, but he managed it. Sesshoumaru refused to initiate sex in the entryway of their house. Besides, he had other plans first.

He stepped back and took a deep breath before reaching up to settle both sets of tags over his head. While the metal ones mere more durable and expensive, they didn't reduce the value of the handmade ones he'd received before. Sesshoumaru let the flat pieces slide under the hem of his open collar before glancing back up at his silent mate. She looked absolutely stunned, eyes wide, mouth agape. He couldn't resist smirking at the swift rise and fall of her chest as Kagome panted before him.

"Perhaps we should move the evening forward," he rumbled the suggestion. The sound apparently woke her from her stupor enough to blink before flushing bright pink. Then he watched her tense up and nearly sighed. He held it in, he would not convey disappointment or impatience to her. He would not allow her to feel pressured by him. Her nervousness was very much a result of his own actions eight years before. "There is no reason to alter your normal routine. Do what you would normally do before bed. I will meet you at the end of your preparations when you are comfortable."

Sesshoumaru wanted to lean forward and kiss her again, to prove he wasn't put off by her reactions. He refrained because he rather thought it might make her tense up more. He nodded sharply at her before taking a careful step back and turning to walk towards the bedroom. There was no need for him to crowd her or follow her around. Kagome wasn't going to run away right now. He could trust in that.


	60. Spark and Light

You should be _sooo_ grateful! I managed to finish this just yesterday, barely in time for a scheduled post! Especially given that this is the chapter many people were waiting for. It certainly is a doozy, starting where we left off in the last chapter and moving on to the big event! I've barely had any time to look this over post writing it, so I apologize in advance if there are any typos or hanging sentences (like last time) but there shouldn't be any misnamed characters as there are only two present.

So a heads up, there should be only one more chapter to wrap up this lovely piece. I have ideas for a few short vignettes centered around various secondary characters that have made appearances either in a chapter or by mention. A few will give us a peek into life for Kagome and Sesshoumaru and others probably won't.

Other than that, I have no other stories planned out for the fandom. I really need to work on something original. I have so many ideas and no need to build up more confidence. I think my current catalog of fanfics proves skill and creativity along with my ability to actually complete what I start, given enough time. I'll never be a career author (mostly because I need the stimulation of a day job to come up with ideas and break through blocks) but I never aimed to be either. This is my hobby, something I've always done because I've always done it. Even if I never posted fanfiction, I still would have written something. *shrug* sometimes it's the only way to get an idea to leave you alone.

Calendar: late March

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Spark and Light**

Sesshoumaru kept his ears tuned to the movements of his mate while he readied the bedroom for their next activities. The insulation built into the soil padded walls was very good, but incomplete when he left the doors open.

As he focused on smoothing out the futon and its accompanying linens, he heard the scrape of a glass on the wood of the shelf underneath it. When he tucked the pillows under the end of the blankets, he heard the faucet come alive and water rush into a hard container. Fumbling with the organic made wax candles Kikyou had given him months ago, Sesshoumaru picked up the rattle of pills in a plastic container.

The sound made him curious as Kagome was very careful about consuming anything that wasn't derived solely from healthy food. She wouldn't even take the mildest painkillers when she developed terrible stress headaches. Sesshoumaru often wondered if she had an allergy she hadn't shared with him but usually dismissed the speculative thought. She hadn't expressed any real issue with the painkillers prescribed for her when she'd broken bones before.

Sesshoumaru shook his head, content to know that whatever reason his mate had pills in the house, he would find out eventually. He didn't need to know all of her remaining secrets right now and trying to extract them from her would go counter to what he was trying to accomplish.

Gazing around the room Sesshoumaru realized he had no way to set up the candles in a safe way. Most of the furniture was made of wood, she had no candle holders apparent or even a fat vase that he could set the pillars safely in. With a sigh he stood up to head for the kitchen.

Sesshoumaru had truly wanted to leave Kagome alone to regain whatever courage she needed to face him in her bedroom. He would not try to drag her there. Coercion would not grant him the goal he was aiming for. He wanted to prove that Sesshoumaru was now worthy of his mate. He'd fixed her a meal and held off his instincts all day to accomplish that. He would not ruin it in the final hours because of impatience.

Still, he needed something to hold the candles away from anything that could burn the house down. Sesshoumaru had investigated the contents of the kitchen earlier in search of cooking utensil and possibilities for the supper he'd made. There was a platter and some glasses that might serve his needs. He wasn't trying to set a romantic mood, that was too ambiguous a goal. Rather he was trying to create a relaxing atmosphere. Kagome was nervous. He wanted to encourage her to relax into his presence and touch. He could only accomplish this by proving he was capable of taking her needs into account before his own.

Kagome knew he wanted her, beside him, around him, cocooning him. He'd never tried to hide it as trust couldn't be built without honesty. He was a creature of sexual needs. He knew she was too. Orgasm helped her release stress and her toys had slowly been worn out with use over the years. She was capable of fantasy and attraction to him. Their joint influenced dreams had made that explicit.

She was human, she was female, she was alive. It sounded so deceptively simple when their situation was dreadfully complex. Kagome's only in person sexual experiences were fraught with coercion, indifference, arrogance, and entrapment. Naturally she would be nervous to try it again.

Truth be told, he was too. Sesshoumaru hadn't had sex since Kagome. He wanted this to be special in the way his first time wasn't, in the way her first time should have been. His reaction to Taishou Hiroyuki's insensitive manipulative ultimatum had cost them both the proper start.

Sesshoumaru sighed gently. The time to place blame and lament over the past was long gone. This was here and now. And here and now involved helping his mate relax into the coming events.

The inu made a bee-line for the cabinet with the desired platter inside. He tried not to look over at her, not wanting to pressure her in any way, but the sound of small pills rattling against plastic drew his attention. A swift glance was arrested by the sight of several prescription bottles being carefully measured out into a weekday organizer. There were far too many of them for something simple. "Are you ill?" came the question before he could think better of it.

Kagome glanced at him before handing Sesshoumaru the bottle she'd just finished with. The neat script on the label stared up at him in black and white, retaining mysteries despite the information neatly typed out. All that truly tugged at him was the name: Dr. Peterson. Where did he know that name from?

"I talked to Dr. Peterson when she came through for her monthly visit last month," Kagome explained when his expression remained puzzled. "She insists on building a visit into her schedule and keeping it, even when we don't actually need her for consultation."

"Dr. Peterson," Sesshoumaru intoned as he reached into the cupboard for the platter he'd originally come seeking. "The name...is familiar," he confessed his continued lack of understanding.

Kagome smiled patiently at him. It was difficult for Sesshoumaru to retain names and associate them with specific people without a scent. "Dr. Peterson is our OB/GYN. She helped June through her pregnancy and insists on being available for any future expectant mothers." She shrugged, "There are other reasons we might need her, but it's unlikely right now."

"And you spoke to her because," Sesshoumaru prompted as he stepped away from the counter, consciously giving her room. He wanted to edge closer, to bury his nose in her hair and scent her deep. Then maybe he could suss out why she would be taking so any prescriptions without having to coax the information from her. Someday, she would be comfortable enough to let him do that without warning. That day wasn't today and he couldn't rush it.

"Because miko have a hard time carrying hanyou," Kagome replied. "The facts on the subject are old and mostly unreliable. It could be that miko have a deficiency of some important vitamin like many women of the time did. Maybe miko suffered from it more than other human women. Maybe it's the opposing energies or maybe it's something else. Whatever the problem, it's good to make sure that all our medical bases are covered."

"Dr. Peterson knows?" Sesshoumaru asked as he picked up the platter and took a further step back to avoid crowding Kagome when he passed by on his way back to the bedroom.

"She knows I'm planning to conceive. She knows you're inu and I'm miko," Kagome nodded. "I couldn't leave that sort of thing out if I wanted the best chances of making it from conception to term. I don't want to miscarry. That's incredibly hard on the body whenever it happens. It takes a lot out of a woman and can put a strain on a relationship."

"It isn't just the high risk of miscarriage that prevents most youkai from breeding with their miko mates," Sesshoumaru observed, gently. He couldn't stop himself from the instinct to breed with her. He wanted children and he knew she did too, but the risks were always something he'd pushed from his mind. Izayoi miscarried many times and she wasn't a miko by any stretch of the imagination. He'd seen the toll it took on her body. He never wanted to put Kagome through it, but there was no controlling that outcome. He would not look to anyone else beyond his mate. He was not his father, he was not willing to break the fragile trust held between them. "There's also extreme difficulty in the birth that often results in either the death of the babe, or more commonly, the mother," something that absolutely terrified him when Sesshoumaru allowed the thought to rise up from the dark of his mind.

"We talked about that too. Despite how well documented the end result is for a miko carrying a hanyou, it's all from five hundred years ago. Medicine didn't climb out of the dark ages for another three hundred years," her tone was soothing, though whether comfort was intended for him or her was unclear. The differentiation was unimportant in any case. With the situation at hand, they both needed what comfort was to be had. "What specifically goes wrong is a mystery. Having no concrete data as to why pregnancy would end in that specific way, we're going to work things as safe as possible, starting with pre-natal vitamins," Kagome snapped the last day's plastic cover into place. "Most women need the boost even nowadays, and they're most effective if taken in the weeks prior to conception. She's going to be watching very carefully once it's medically confirmed we've conceived. Dr. Peterson even plans to adjust her schedule to increase the number of visits she'll make per month."

"Will her schedule become similar to the one during the end of June's pregnancy?" Sesshoumaru asked because the OB/GYN had been constantly at SIMHH in the final month. Kagome had made it seem excessive and he'd agreed. Then. Now he was thinking that maybe it wasn't so ridiculous to have the doctor drive out three days a week.

"Not quite that often," Kagome smiled at him as she dug out a few water bottles from the drawer in the fridge. "Dr. Peterson only spent that much time on June because her father was mostly hysterical and June had no other constant support. So long as there are no pressing health reasons for me to need her constantly, the OB/GYN should only need to come out once a week to keep a really good eye on me. She'll be on call for the delivery though. Things can happen quickly and it's best to have an expert available in case anything goes wrong. Right now we're going to treat this as any other normal pregnancy between a human and a youkai. Labor is when things are likely to become critical. Dr. Peterson already plans to have tools for a Cesarian birth ready. But I'm only focusing on helping the pregnancy to get that far."

"Perhaps that is best," Sesshoumaru pondered aloud. "Focus on the immediate problems that need attention now. Take your vitamins," he smiled softly reaching out to return the bottle Kagome had given him. "If it is the opinion of the doctor to follow that path at this time, this Sesshoumaru will abide by it," he teased at her. "After all, my mate has taught me the benefit of following medical advice, but only from experts well practiced in their field."

"Ah!" Kagome huffed, pretending to be scandalized by his words. "Most doctors are capable of general medicine without causing injury to their patients' health." She was very careful of just how she criticized her fellow medical professionals. "Yes, there are some who are more skilled than others and more open-minded but they have all received extensive training and medicine does improve the quality of life for many people around the world!"

"Hnn," he riled her with the sound. "Unless one is a hanyou or carrying a hanyou," he pointed out.

"Well, yes, that does seem to be true," Kagome sobered with a nod. "I don't know why it's so hard to accept what I suggest actually works when nothing else has before."

"Human and Youkai psychology is incredibly complex, there is unlikely to be a single definitive answer," Sesshoumaru shrugged. He slipped away from the environs of the kitchen, the platter tucked carefully under his arm. "Perhaps if you need a few more minutes, you could move the load from the wash and add it to the dryer."

"Sure, I can do that." Kagome answered quietly, before taking active notice of the dish he'd claimed. "Hey, what's the platter for?" she asked him curiously.

Sesshoumaru smirked before turning and walking back to the bedroom without answering. He could tell her, there was no harm in it. If she took it the wrong way, a few minutes would clear it up. Instead, he liked her expression of curiosity. She was engaged in the night's events and not worrying over something else. He recognized the note in her voice when her brain was completely intrigued by something he said or did. It was nice to know the expression that accompanied it. Interacting with his mate in person was filled with a wealth of new facets he'd missed in their years limited to telephone conversations.

He wouldn't learn all of them quickly and he didn't want to. Sesshoumaru had found he rather enjoyed their slow courtship. It was a style of seduction he'd never had cause to use, but he liked it. Learning who she was, how she'd react to things. More he learned about himself. He learned how flawed some of his views had been and how deep he could feel.

Before, emotion mostly rode the surface. After his teenage years, filled with angry frustration with the world, the paparazzi, his parents, and his pack, Sesshoumaru had felt very little so strongly it was uncontrollable. He was strangely numb, untouchable by nearly everything going on around him. Even the passionate nights of sex couldn't seem to satisfy him very deeply or for very long.

Sesshoumaru had simply floated by things, untouched by the passions that heated debates in speech class or the politics sweeping through student organizations. He hadn't seen the limitations of society, the flaws in the system beyond the ones that had him stuck as the heir to a position he couldn't drum up more than low level of resentment for.

Actually, Sesshoumaru's brow creased in thought, before the anger that typified his teenage years, there was little more than resentment for his parents and his half brother. He never saw them and it hurt in ways he was too insecure to let show. He shook his head and knelt down to set the large rounded platter on the floor. The past was gone. He would never forget it, he never wanted to repeat it, but he wouldn't linger over it unnecessarily.

Sesshoumaru reached out for the short, squat pillars of natural beeswax lightly scented to promote relaxation. Kikyou had been slowly developing her own signature scents that were youkai and human appealing. Inuyasha was her initial guinea pig, but Sesshoumaru was her final test. This scent was one he'd found particularly soothing and all of her gifts after that had been infused with it. He lit the small trio and studied the surrounding area to insure nothing would have a chance to come near the flames.

Once he was satisfied he moved to the neatly made futon and collected the bottle of massage oil to warm it. Sesshoumaru had to smile at the smoothed blankets. Kagome had told him that she couldn't stand rumpled empty beds. The fact the futon had been disheveled upon his arrival only indicated that Rin had been the last to rise and the wolves had been her chaperones. Kagome would never have left her room in such disarray, as proven by the fact she had tidied it when he sent her to change clothes.

Working so closely with the nurses, training so long as a doctor had left its mark on her personal habits. Kagome was aware of it, she's the one who told him a few years ago. Even when Rin was smaller and took naps during the day, Kagome couldn't _not_ make up the bed every time the pup got back up. It was the most she could do not to impose her habits on a pup Rin's age.

He chuckled to himself. Kagome occasionally fretted in their calls after Katarin had fallen asleep that she would saddle the coyote pup with an artificial case of OCD. He talked her down from her fears several times, but she still worried. Nonny had told him it was in the nature of mothers to fixate and worry. They knew their own flaws well enough to fear transference to their children. He could relate very well. There were things about himself he never wanted transferred to his offspring. There was no preventing everything, but he understood the constant struggle to decide what could be guarded against and what would have to be risked.

It was a balancing act, choosing what risks to take in your life, what level of danger was acceptable. The addition of a mate raised the stakes, increased what was available to lose. The stakes were never higher than when making choices on how to raise children. Sesshoumaru sighed before setting down the bottle of massage oil and reaching to lift his shirt over his head.

He usually slept nude. Kagome was aware of that. To remain fully clothed would be incongruous with her knowledge of his habits. Building trust couldn't be done by altering his behavior by such extremes. Ultimately they would both end up naked, she knew that. Gradually undressing and slowly increasing skin on skin touch would ease the transition.

Sesshoumaru picked up the bottle again, rubbing it smoothly between his hands absently. His ears picked up the closing of a metal door and the mechanized turning of a dryer tumbler. She was coming.

Kagome came into view carrying the water bottles and pill organizer in her hands. Her hair was slowly relaxing from the waves imprinted on the dark locks by the elastic that had confined it during the day. Her blue eyes took in the room carefully before locking on his amber ones. "The candles are nice," she decided, courageously stepping further into the room to kneel on the smooth blankets beside him.

"Kikyou developed them," Sesshoumaru acknowledged, glancing over her pajamas once more to decide whether he could move forward with her in them or if he would need her to remove something. The fabric was very loose and light weight. He should be able to work around it easily enough to start with. There was no rush tonight.

"She's gotten much better then," Kagome declared as she set the vitamins and water beside the platter, leaving both within reach but unlikely to be knocked over. "Her scents always held a manufactured note in them that made it impossible to enjoy."

"This Sesshoumaru was not aware humans could smell that," Sesshoumaru glanced at his miko.

"Most can't, but I'm sensitive," Kagome shrugged. "I could always smell the base chemicals under the intended scents. Perhaps it's because I was always familiar with the smell of them to start with. I took a lot of labs in High School."

"Hnn," Sesshoumaru agreed mildly. He refused to be drawn further into the subject without moving their evening along. "Please lie down," he requested after a pause. He handed her the small bottle he'd been warming with his hands by way of silent communication.

"A massage?" Came her surprised words after reading the bottle.

"This Sesshoumaru has read up on Massage and touch therapy," he explained, still waiting for her to comply with his request. "You are anxious and distrustful of intimate touching, though you are human and need the skin on skin contact. It is regrettable I have not had time to study in depth; I know enough to help alleviate some of your fear."

"When did-"

"A few classes here and there between contracts," Sesshoumaru responded. "You may not end this completely without tension, but you should be significantly more comfortable with this Sesshoumaru."

She looked away from his face to stare at the pillows peaking out from under the coverlet. A moment of thought inspired an absent nod before she spoke, "You want me to take off-" Kagome finished the question by tugging nervously at her pajama collar.

"We can start with you fully clothed," he assured her. "This Sesshoumaru has no intention of pressing you into anything before you are ready. Not again, anyway," he ducked as she handed him the thoroughly warmed massage oil. Her smile was warm though filled with nerves.

The miko shifted to lay out before him, tugging her mass of dark hair over her shoulder. Her vulnerable but clothed back stretched before Sesshoumaru hinting at a willingness to attempt trust. Unable to resist, the inu leaned forward to nuzzle her cheek before withdrawing to her delicate feet. Cracking his knuckles in preparation to apply a very carefully moderate pressure on the underlying soft tissue, Sesshoumaru opened the scented oil. Rubbing a small amount between his palms, he began to run his long fingers over the arches of her feet.

His instincts slowly stilled in the back of his mind as his eyes focused on the incredible sight of Sesshoumaru's strong hands working over her soft skin. When he reached her ankle, he pushed the leg of her pants up to the knee and continued to rub at the muscle of her calf, pausing to collect more of the smooth liquid in the bottle. Her breaths were even and the rhythm eventually settled into his own lungs, matching her breath for breath. A move to her other limb proved the effect on her nerves as she relaxed under his ministrations.

He moved higher, smoothing the soft cotton out to avoid pressing a crease into her muscular thigh. The oil wouldn't do her much good through the fabric and might stain the cloth, but to bunch the material further would make her uncomfortable. Asking Kagome to remove it so early might trigger a surge in anxiety that would make the rest of his work ineffective.

Sesshoumaru kept to the side to avoid making Kagome feel trapped. Treating his mate like a frightened animal was somewhat painful, and a little inconvenient for some tasks, but better to treat her carefully than ruin what trust she had gained and was gaining in him. There was emotional and mental closeness that conflicted with the physical. Kagome had trouble with casual touches. They would be doing more than simple brushes or hugging. Kagome had an honest distrust of males. Sesshoumaru was the original male to cause it.

It was a difficult summit to conquer, but not impossible, just a long term task.

He moved on to her back, pouring a generous amount of oil in his hand before touching her skin under the fabric. His first brush against the fabric covering her upper torso left Kagome giggling. "What is so humorous mate?" Sesshoumaru broke the silence to question the reaction. Massage could serve many purposes, only one was to relax her.

"Tickles," she laughed again. The corners of his mouth turned up in the pleasure of learning this physical detail before helping to remove the distracting sensation for her massage experience. The back of her shirt raised up to her shoulders without bunching too much and the exposure of her spine only seemed to induce a shiver.

Sesshoumaru focused on the tight muscles in her lower back for a time, dragging a few relieved moans from his female as he worked the soreness from the area. She spent a long time on her feet and rarely slept properly. It wasn't difficult to believe constant ache was a friend of hers.

Her smooth skin rippling and rolling under the strong stokes of his palms hypnotized him. It was likely he would end their massage just as relaxed as the female submitting to his touch. Slowly his efforts to coax the knots and tension from her back progressed until his fingers were stretching to tease the skin of her shoulders under the gathered fabric of her shirt. The muscles close to her neck were tight and he couldn't seem to get a good angle. Frustrated, Sesshoumaru smoothed her shirt down, and tried to work the stiffness out from over the collar.

By now Kagome's eyes were glassy and her moans were near constant. Sesshoumaru's ears twitched with every appreciative sound. She tempted him to leave off early, but he would not be deterred.

Not yet anyway.

Sesshoumaru leaned forward to nuzzle against her cheek, his hand resting in the middle of her back before he pulled back to whisper in her ear. "Turn over?" his words were a request, only she could make the decision as to which direction they went from here. He could work the muscles of her back some more, drop back to her feet and legs, or they could press onward.

Kagome raised herself up on her hands and knees before awkwardly flipping to lie in mostly the same general space. Her head laid back against the pillow and her arms rested at her sides. Sesshoumaru started with the shoulders and worked his way down the muscles of her arm. He had to be careful how much pressure he allowed to fill his fingers. Human bones were no match for youkai strength, and soft tissue didn't suffer compression much better.

Sesshoumaru had never had a problem tempering his strength for humans. It was something he did without thinking, having learned that lesson under his grandfather's watch. His brows drew together as he tried to remember just what had made the lesson sink in so deep. He'd never been around Izayoi very much and most of his schools had limited human enrollment. He'd never had a need to interact closely with them.

"What's the matter?" Kagome asked, withdrawing her hand from his grasp to reach up and rub at the furrow entrenched in his forehead.

He caught the soft flesh of her hand and drew her palm to his mouth to kiss gently. "Hn," Sesshoumaru hummed as he considered how best to describe his thoughts. "This Sesshoumaru was merely trying to figure out who or what taught me how to properly control the power I use in every touch." The wording was a little stilted, but the sentiment was not as he illustrated it by brushing his fingers against her cheek. "There were not a lot of humans around for me to learn with, no close interactions that could have resulted in instructional injury great or small." None of his long ago lovers had been more than rubbed a little raw from a marathon of sex or slightly bruised from a fall or a spill he couldn't prevent. His partners had as often been human as youkai and had never left bloody or limping. None had required more medical attention than perhaps a morning after pill or some painkillers for a lingering hangover. And the second was only a rare occurrence.

"It was probably your grandfather," Kagome suggested as he moved to her other side, tugging that arm out to massage.

"It is most likely, though I can't remember," Sesshoumaru agreed even as his hands pushed back the fabric shielding her forearm from view. He worked his hands over the pale skin, reveling in the warmth that radiated into his hands. Incapable of resisting, he bent to kiss the palm of that hand in mirror of the previous gesture. His hand ran up her limb until his careful claws disappeared under the bunch material hiding her upper arm from his gaze before replacing the sleeve and moving on.

Sesshoumaru flipped up the front of her shirt to expose her stomach up to under her breasts and Kagome smiled indulgently. His hand ran over the exposed flesh, mapping each dip and curve with the pads of his fingers slowly sweeping closer to the flesh that remained hidden. By the time his claws were flirting with the soft cotton maintaining her privacy, Sesshoumaru had inched forward to lick over her belly, investigating the strange topography of her belly button and nosing along the path of his hands. The oil he'd chosen had a mild scent and very little taste. Just as well, he couldn't have resisted a taste of her skin anyway.

It came as almost a surprise when his nose bumped against the parts of her still protected by cloth. Sesshoumaru's attention had been so focused on what he was doing that he missed everything outside the skin against his tongue and the trembling of the muscle beneath it. The abrupt contact with higher contours awoke him to the fact the slight tremors could be from fear. "Kagome?" he breathed the name like a prayer or a plea. It would kill him if he'd taken liberties she wasn't ready for.

In lieu of an answer, Kagome raised her hand to cup his cheek and smiled gently. "Is that it?" she asked, her cheeks dimpled and flushed with warmth. Sesshoumaru reciprocated the gesture with a passionate kiss, cradling her jaw with his own hand while smoothing down her shirt to cover her belly. When he pulled back, he'd clearly stolen her smile as her expression was daze and his lips were turned up. Her breathing had sped up and her pupils had dilated. His mouth moved back in to taste the skin of her cheek and jaw allowing his hands to move on to stroking from her collar bone to nearly the peak of her breasts through the neck opening of her shirt.

Kagome was moaning in his ear, encouraging him to move ahead, but Sesshoumaru paused before sitting back up. Her groan of disappointment almost made him lean back in for more. Sesshoumaru shook his head with a grin, "More mate?" the words were deeper than his usual tone, deeper than he'd ever used during their various play dates. Long distance love could never compare to in-person interactions for an inu. "We move ahead at your pace only."

"Mmm, More Sesshoumaru," she whined, unhappy with the pause even as she celebrated the assurance that he wanted her consent first. Kagome pouted when he moved further away instead of leaning back in to kiss her some more.

Sesshoumaru scooted back to set both claws on the waist band of her pants and started to shift them down her legs. Almost eagerly, she raised herself up to assist and he dragged the soft cotton all the way down her legs. His hands reversed their path up the length of her bared legs, gently settling them wider so he could settle between them. Leaning down to explore the bared flesh with his tongue, Sesshoumaru happily licked his way over the flesh he hadn't yet massaged properly.

He found a ticklish spot behind her knee and an old scar on the outside of her thigh from her pet cat scratching her as a kid. Sesshoumaru explored the valley of her hip and the strawberry birthmark splashed across her side. There was a patch of rough skin low on her belly where Rin had accidentally caught her on puppy teeth enough to draw blood. Eventually, Kagome progressed from passively accepting his caresses to bestowing more of her own. Joy was found in the dance of her fingers over his claws where he clutched her hip to hold her in place. Contentment was the slight tug of her palm over his hair, tugging the binding loose to free the strands around them. Proof of her willing participation kept his mouth expressing his pleasure into her skin, pressing more eagerly, hastening his path from the expanse of platonic skin to the core of physical, carnal intemacy.

Her scent and taste drew him in until he was mindlessly delving deep inside of her, dragging responses out of her nerve endings and sounds from her throat.

Until...

"Sesshoumaru!" she gushed over his tongue, blessing him with a new favorite treat. A flavor so addicting he failed to leave off his efforts to gain more of it until he was sending three fingers up in search of it fast and sensual. Her reactionary motions had grown all but uncontrollable making it increasingly difficult to search out the prize without risk of damage and he reluctantly sat back up. Leaving off that treasure hunt was disappointing for the ten seconds it took his body to inform him he was painfully in need of the next step. His loose sleep pants were uncomfortable against his pelvis and he shifted to remove them for the following stages of their intimacy.

Instead of crawling up her body to cage her under him for the next step, Sesshoumaru's strong arms lifted her from the floor to straddle his bent legs. He would not make her feel trapped into this. At least not for the first round. Instinct would push him to other positions later, but he was still capable of some modicum of control and thought and he would use it.

Their mouths crashed together in a hunger that was desperate to be sated. "Take me into you," he begged. His hands were purposely filled with keeping her close. He was strong enough to hold her and help line them up for coitus, but Sesshoumaru wanted her to do it. He wanted her to know he'd given her choice and let her participate equally in their loving.

He'd discovered, after many conversations on the subject, that Kagome enjoyed making the effort to please her partner as much as she enjoyed being pleased herself. She didn't want to be a passive receiver as she rarely allowed that role even in fantasies. Eventually, she would grow too exhausted to help much, a youkai's stamina far surpassed that of a human, but he would encourage her to touch, feel, and move on her own while she could.

Without any noticeable hesitation, Kagome had him aligned and ready to sink gently into the welcoming inferno of her sex. It had been so long since Sesshoumaru had felt it, the heat came as a surprise. And the pressure, Kagome's body squeezed him amazingly tight. It stole his breath in a gasp that she greedily sucked in her lungs. They shared air a moment, savoring the single event of joining before screaming instincts pushed him to move or accept insanity.

Kagome moved eagerly with him, matching him thrust for thrust, aided by gravity every time she engulfed him in her core. Sesshoumaru found a sensitive spot on her neck to lick and kiss and worry with his tender teeth. Her head fell back as moans continued to spill from her swollen lips. One hand stole up to her breast, kneading the tender flesh in absent spasms of pleasure and need. Orgasm stole upon them with surprising force. It came fast for both despite, Kagome's recent fall under his tongue and fingers.

They paused only briefly before starting again, hungry for more without instinct pushing any harder. Maybe later, they would only move for instinct, but now it was driven by desire and affection and comfort and need.

And Trust.


	61. Heart Full of Love

This is it! The very last chapter of _Paper Cranes_! I know you've all been waiting, but real life hits hard when it wants your attention. Six weeks may have seemed like a lot of time for all of you waiting for the conclusion to this story, but my word it went fast!

So, as some of you more vocal readers might know, I made a visit to the family up north for baby brother's HS graduation and open house. I haven't been on particularly good terms with a large portion of my immediate family for a few months now and being shoved into close quarters with them wasn't pleasant. I was emotionally wrung out two days _before_ I was supposed to come home. Ugh! That kind of stress is not good for writing and creativity!

I got back and hit the ground running in my house hunt. I was fairly exhausted before we found a house that I liked and that would accept my offer (The second distinction is very important as the first house I went for got a better offer before mine.) Once the offer was accepted, It was inspections and paperwork and packing and signing until I'm blue in the face. But it's all done. Mostly. I will have completely moved out of my apartment of four years and into my new house on the 27th with only a little cleaning left to take care before turning in the keys. And through it all I some how managed to crank out this chapter.

I'm not promising awesomeness here, nothing explosive or particularly poignant. Life never just finds a good stopping point (except death, and even that leads into the story of those affected by loss) so don't expect all loose ends to be completely tied up in a knot. But it does end on a positive, hopeful, looking to the future type of tone.

Calendar: October

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Heart Full of Love**

When Kagome moved to put her empty salad bowl in the sink, movement outside the kitchen window caught her eye. The view made her smile. Today was Rin's birthday. Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha had taken the pup to walk the property lines.

It was a rite of passage common among canine youkai. It marked the end of infancy. Rin was now graduated from the purely taken care of to the realm of increasing responsibility. The rite was the admission that she was beyond the helpless stage of life. Sesshoumaru would start teaching the little female ways to manipulate her youki in defensive maneuvers.

Sesshoumaru – and Inuyasha in smaller ways – would teach her techniques to take down attackers in any form. While the whole of the pack would protect her still, she would be expected to learn to protect herself and others younger and weaker in the ways of a pack. Ginta and Hakkaku would be invited to participate. The more Rin learned the better protected she would be. Her instinct already leaned in the direction of looking after those around her in all the ways she was capable, now she would learn more.

Before now all of Rin's efforts had been limited to following medical protocols and cheering up the patients she came in contact with. The little coyote knew when a situation warranted the need to tell an adult. She could identify a situation that would be dangerous for those around her and she knew the peaceful ways of words and disarming innocence to defuse an argument. She wasn't an expert in their use, only growth and experience could teach her that, but the little female was observant. Rin had proven her readiness for this step by learning so much already.

Besides, Kagome sighed in chagrin, Rin's youki had grown quite a bit in the last six months. She'd wanted to argue for putting off this rite, reluctant to admit the pp was growing up so fast, but the coyote pup was now powerful enough to pose a risk to SIMHH if she didn't learn to restrain her energy. Kagome and Sesshoumaru could contain her little spikes of frustration and occasional anger, but now was the time to teach her self control. It would be silly to wait until the pup's energy became completely unmanageable. She would pose a greater danger then and have a more difficult time trying to learn control if allowed to grow stronger first.

Kagome noticed Inuyasha was panting lightly as Kikyou approached him with a bottle of water and a towel. His aura was full of a contentment Kagome had never detected from him in Japan. Separation from the Taishou pack had done him amazing good, whatever Hiroyuki and the press might have fed to the world.

Immediately after the Taishou alpha was returned to his base of power in Japan, the story began to circulate that SIMHH had kidnapped and imprisoned his son. The press had camped out front of the clinic for weeks. The initial absence of Kagome and Sesshoumaru only gave the rumors time to grow crazier with each iteration.

Ginta had saved them the first day after the pair were ready to return to the world with a phone call and a fast ride. Kagome still couldn't believe the malarkey Hiroyuki tried to pass as fact. Sesshoumaru had been required to stand up in the press conference out front of the institute and straighten out the story. Cheryl and Titus had participated to clear the name of SIMHH and explain the rules Kagome held as law. They had to go into the history of why and how and what to explain why a visiting lord had been banned from the building. Kelly had produced a video of the scene that proved Hiroyuki had been removed for his own bad behavior rather than any malicious or pointedly prejudiced decisions on SIMHH's part.

Kagome had been carefully kept out of the lime light, the better to continue doing her work.

Until the official paperwork for Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha's separation from the Taishou pack came to light. It further proved the Taishou had made the story up but also brought to light that the inu brothers were immigrating to America and that Kagome and a number of her previous sponsors were bringing them in. Then they'd done what they could to dig up dirt on the secret miko, her professors, sponsors, and associates. They dug up "Mary" who told all in her very biased view and ended up in litigation for defaming Kagome. They discovered the mating between Sesshoumaru and Kagome and speculations ran rampant. They tried to use Katarin as proof of her unfaithfulness though how anyone could think a human could breed with any youkai and produce a full-blooded youkai, Kagome had no idea. There were tabloids filled with speculation over her relationship with Ginta and Hakkaku.

The papparazzi dug into her family in Japan and linked her with as many males as possible, failing to report that nearly all names raised were currently and formerly linked romantically with other people. Brett's name was dragged through the mud for his sexual proclivities and chosen life partner. Somehow the nosy gossip-mongers found out about Trish and the rest of the Australia crew. Somebody spilled all their fantasies to the press as if it were fact, making it seem like Sesshoumaru had cheated on Kagome.

Then the ugliest rumors started. The ones that had the small state bound pack exchanging partners in the most petty, highly emotional, and jealous ways. The worst part, all of the excessive talk even found its way into the more respectable papers until Kagome had been required to stop all SIMHH's periodicals just to keep the vitriol out.

Things were just started to quiet down, when the circling vultures snapped up the speculation that Kagome was pregnant. She wasn't showing that much when the first reporters began to publicly wonder about babies. And it wasn't in the cheerful disinterested excitement that accompanied the same idle fertility musings regarding celebrities either. It was the malicious type, the kind that turned up around shotgun weddings. As if Kagome being pregnant would be the only reason Sesshoumaru would mate her.

Kagome took a deep breath and let it out slowly bringing her mind back to the present and focusing just on the father and pup shaking out their fur. Rin was still bounding around, darting from the paws of the white inu to nip at the pant legs of Inuyasha and back again playfully. To the casual watcher, the coyote might seem just as full of boundless energy as she had been when she left, but Kagome could see the truth. The pup was excited, exhilarated to be growing up and spending time with her papa and uncle. But the motions were a second off in their initiation from when the notion struck. The paws tripped up a little too often.

Knowing the pup like Kagome did, she had little doubt that instead of just running the property lines as was required, Rin had likely run back and forth between the two males who were escorting her as proper alpha and pack mate should. With all the circles and exploring the little pup ran, it wouldn't surprise Kagome if Rin had run far enough to encircle the property three or four times. The pup was about ready to drop but Rin would never admit it.

Kagome smiled before the expression dropped off her face and she whirled around to look away from the view. Sesshoumaru was changing back and that first glimpse of naked male got to her every time. It was really quite annoying. All the males around her would tease her terribly for her altered scent and hormonal reaction, but god forbid she try to hide it. The last time Kagome had chosen to cover or block her scent with Reiki, they'd nearly had a riot against her. Even Rin had growled at her.

Kagome shuffled her feet over to the door before slipping off her house slippers and stepping into a loose pair of outdoor shoes. Technically, they were Sesshoumaru's moccasins, bought for him to wear around the property in place of his nicer loafers. Once Kagome's feet started to swell, they'd become hers since there wasn't a pair of her own shoes that were nearly as comfortable. Sesshoumaru wordlessly teased her about it every time she wore them with the same smug grin. She was uncomfortable because she was pregnant and he felt proudly responsible.

Kagome didn't care at this point. She swept up the book she was working through before opening the door and heading for the lounger selected for just this activity. Once she settled into place, Sesshoumaru and Rin would join her and hopefully, the pup would doze off. Sesshoumaru was always glued to her side after any separation, no matter the duration and reason. And generally where Sesshoumaru was during the day, Rin was not far behind.

Kagome was wearing light weight pants and a long-sleeved cotton shirt. They were among the dwindling selection of her clothing that weren't quite too small in the waist yet. She hadn't completely out grown her wardrobe but it was a near thing for some of her clothing. Sesshoumaru always suggested she revert to his clothing whenever she brought it up. He wanted to see her draped in his claim all the time. Kagome hated to tell him that she doubted even his clothing would be big enough for the entirety of her pregnancy.

This time of year wasn't particularly warm, but the sun was high, the air was crisp and she wanted to be out in it before the chill of winter really had a chance to take hold. If she settled in a quiet spot, bathed in sun, she would be warm enough even without the anticipated company of mate and pup. After they joined her, the bite in the air would likely be necessary to keep her comfortable.

Kagome had to smile at the mini spat Kikyou and Inuyasha were having as the hanyou followed his mate back toward the herb garden still being readied for the colder months. Kikyou had insisted on planting at least some of the materials she needed to continue her work. To that end she had planted some fruit trees too. Next summer they hoped to get a bee hive set up for her and probably a large flower garden to go with the herbal one already prepared.

Rin had been confused as to why they needed another flower garden. Her little plot at the front of the house was packed with flowering plants that were pretty and smelled nice. Kikyou was still trying to explain the difference between the weeds that were good enough for Rin and the fragrant blooms used in the making of naturally scented products.

Kagome refused to step in to help tackle this subject. There were some lessons the pack would have to impart jointly. Kikyou had a stronger background in horticulture and botany. Inuyasha was about as articulate on the subject of flowers as he was on any subject that wasn't food. Sesshoumaru generally answered Rin's questions with a rather cute bewildered look that searched Kagome out for help. The pup was three years old and could no more understand prejudice against certain types of flowers as she could against certain types of people.

In some ways, Kagome was proud of Rin's simplistic view of the world around her. It was naïve and innocent, but couldn't last without greater protection than would be good for the pup. It wasn't necessary that Rin learn prejudice or hatred herself so much as to become aware that it existed in the world around her. To remain blind to it would be a danger as the pup grew and entered the world. Kagome couldn't teach this lesson, she needed to remain free of it so Rin would come to her for comfort and advice.

The world wasn't perfect. It never came close, but it was the world they lived in. She and Sesshoumaru as parents were tasked with helping Katarin learn what she needed to live in it too.

Kagome paused at the strange yet exhilarating shifting below her belly button.

Pregnancy was the incredibly terrifying yet euphoric experience she'd expected it to be. She was uncomfortable and tired, easily aroused and eternally hungry. Her emotions were, thankfully not as mercurial as she'd feared they'd be but still occasionally scared the life out of every member of the pack with the exception of Rin. Her cravings had been fairly tame if the occasional need to eat raw meat could be considered tame.

She headed directly for the lounger without bothering to pay any further attention to Sesshoumaru or Rin. There was no need. The minute she settled Sesshoumaru lifted her back out of the seat to claim the space she was in, planting her in his lap. Rin cuddled up against her side wearing her fur to commune with Kagome's rather active belly. Sesshoumaru insisted their hearing was better in their natural forms and the sound of so many heart beats enchanted the pup's imagination.

Kagome and her OB/GYN had done some extensive research into the many possible reasons humans with power might have more trouble birthing hanyou than humans without. Miko were not particularly unique in the world though the terminology and philosophy changed, all cultures had humans with power that were generally revered to a certain degree. While the Japanese had all but driven miko to extinction via youkai breeding and mating, other places had followed a different course.

As such there were plenty of more recent cases of humans with power breeding with youkai. And while the same problem was prevalent, it wasn't what they were expecting.

There was no doubt that the miko women five hundred years ago had suffered severe vitamin deficiency. Nearly all humans did. It was also true that childbirth was a dangerous undertaking at the time too. Infections and fevers were common. The medical practices were universally lacking in hygiene and sanitation.

None of that was the true reason for miko fatality rates in child birth.

The real reason had shocked the hell out of Kagome.

She wasn't pregnant with just one pup. It wasn't even the more rare but entirely possible set of twins. Apparently, human and youkai energies were incredibly compatible when it came to breeding. Where humans cross bred with youkai at a higher rate than youkai bred within their own species in general, humans with power practically amplified that reality.

It was rare to find a hanyou born from the same two parents on the same day. It was just as rare for the youkai breeds to bring a litter to full term nowadays as well. But powerful humans rarely produced anything less than three.

And that was where the high childbirth mortality rate came from. The women five hundred years ago that had survived birthing twins were small in number. The rate dropped significantly when the size of any given birthing increased.

It wasn't that miko were unable to produce viable offspring. It wasn't that they were less able to have children. It was more that they were trying to birth multiples in a time period ill-equipped to assist them in the difficulties that came from it.

When Kagome first learned that she was essentially carrying a litter of five, she'd had a fit. Then she'd promptly told Sesshoumaru that nobody in the pack was going to be breeding again any time soon. The pack simply couldn't afford it. Not if Kikyou were likely to drop a litter too. The one house just couldn't hold that many pups. The pack funds couldn't support it either.

Sesshoumaru had chuckled before handing down the news. Inuyasha had blustered and complained until he found out just how many pups were on the way. Kikyou had blanched and readily agreed without further discussion. No woman wanted to hear they were destined to birth triplets every time she got pregnant. One baby was terrifying enough.

Kagome ran her fingers through Rin's fur, affectionately smoothing out the wild tufts against the pup's skull. Sesshoumaru reached around Kagome to twitch one of the coyote's ears teasingly. Rin yipped at her father before ducking out of reach of both her parents' hands and Sesshoumaru chuckled. Rin settled a bit lower on Kagome's hip and Kagome turned her attention to the book in her hands.

Sesshoumaru read over her shoulder, digging in his chin to let her know he wasn't finished with a page when she moved to turn to the next one. She wasn't sure how much he was getting out of it. She was rather far into it, the text was dry and difficult to read, a rough translation of an obscure herbalist's healing diary. She was hunting out more options for her hanyou patients and if it improved medicine in general, that was all the better. It was research of the driest type.

Kagome had already explored the easier source materials, ones more readily available for perusal. Now she was moving on to texts that could only be obtained through special contacts and networking. This was her third time through this particular volume.

For some of these rougher translations, she'd found it a bit more sensible to read it multiple times. The first to help her get familiar with the translator's particular syntax and style, all repeat efforts were an effort to glean real information from the text. Sometimes it wasn't just the translator's special proclivities for wonky sentence structure and overly literal transcription. Some diarists and herbalists were simply eccentric in their documentation. This particular author and translator pair liked to write in incomplete sentences, dropping words and particles irregularly. It was full of home remedies and useful treatments for common childhood diseases that seemed plausible and completely pertinent to her hanyou patients. The hard part was ferreting out everything involved in a singular treatment plan when connectivity was ambiguous.

Kagome sighed in frustration. She supposed it was to be expected. Most herbalists a few hundred years ago rarely had reason to expect their scribblings would ever be read by anyone else of their own profession. Training back then wasn't from books, it was from already experienced and vetted masters schooling a replacement.

Sesshoumaru pressed a kiss to her ear and Kagome laid her head back against his shoulder, taking her eyes of the frustrating book. She wasn't sure if he was aware that he made the same gesture every time Rin fell asleep next to them. It never failed regardless of his consciousness of the action.

Kagome closed the book to ask the questions she'd wanted to since espying their return. "How did it go?"

"Hn," Sesshoumaru squeezed her briefly before relaxing his hold around her. "Rin threw off Inuyasha's pacing." His tone conveyed his amusement at the situation. For all that Inuyasha had matured over the years, the hanyou was still easily goaded into altering his behavior by a three year old pup. It was another reason the pack should put off the breeding of the younger couple.

"I'd noticed he was winded when you got back." Kagome smiled at Inuyasha's twitching ear. He could hear them talking, but he couldn't catch what wasn't being said. "Rin was excited."

"Indeed," She could tell he was smiling too. It was in his tone. The big inu had much to please him today. "Still, we made it all the way around. The rite has been completed." Sesshoumaru would take Rin with him regularly from now on. They wouldn't walk the whole property line every time, but they didn't really have to. The pack had enough members able to do the job that the task could be split up reasonably well. It was meant to be time spent between pup and alpha, time to bond fully and teach youki control and release. There would be defenses taught for her true form as well. Walking the boundaries of their shared territory was a defense in and of itself.

"How often do you plan to take her out?" Kagome asked. There was some ambiguity in what was required. Time constraints on alpha and pup could cut into other activities including their shared walk.

"Ideally, we would go daily," Sesshoumaru thought aloud. "Realistically, I'll be happy to go no less than twice a week." Kagome nodded her understanding. The Clinic demanded much of them all. With Sesshoumaru here now, Kagome rarely slept in her office of a night, but her attention was often still drawn that way. His was too as he worked to manage their financial strategies and marketing. He was determined that SIMHH be widely known so that every doctor and family would know where to reach out if there was a need without having to be lucky enough to catch the right doctor. He was busy trying to find more donors so that her original sponsors no longer had as big a stake in the clinic as they do now.

Sesshoumaru was also the reason Kagome was already teaching two doctors for the next year. It would have become a part of her program eventually, to train up the next wave of Hanyou experts, but she hadn't planned to start so early. When her pregnancy was confirmed medically, it became apparent that some months down the road _someone_ would have to cover the clinic during her maternity leave. Luckily the two chosen were flexible thinkers and more than willing to accept Kagome's methods for what they were. The only ones that had proven to work. The pair were capable and incredibly willing to take direction for the more experienced nurses on staff. There would be no more Cora's lost by doctors more convinced of their own infallibility and capability than the methods that, while seemingly counter intuitive, had proven effective.

For about the month before birthing, the pair would be working under the supervision of the lead nurses and Dr. Peterson who had insisted on being constantly on site. Kagome would deliver in her own clinic, but she would not be the doctor on-site for a full three months. She used to panic for a single week, now she wasn't. Dr. Nelum and Dr. Jordan were a bit green, but with the support staff should be able to cover most situation

Sesshoumaru was also responsible for upping her consulting bracket from what it was to thirty six international cases.

"Could the run from here to the clinic serve the same purpose?" Kagome asked for a solution. Since she and Sesshoumaru traveled to and from the institute almost daily, Rin and The inu could take it on foot and supply the time he wanted.

"It's a bit far," Sesshoumaru pointed out. Walking the entire parcel of land probably wouldn't take as long, but it didn't serve the same purpose.

"She can take a nap while she's there," Kagome shrugged. "Or she could only take it one way." It was a rare day when Sesshoumaru ran and Kagome didn't also drive. She liked having the added mobility since her mate couldn't legally run into town on his four paws.

"True," Sesshoumaru conceded before turning the subject. He was obviously going to think about it, but Kagome could tell he didn't want to commit to that plan just yet. "You called the clinic." He prompted. The words weren't really a question. Kagome always called when left to her own devices. Given she wasn't planning to go back until tomorrow only increased the odds.

"Teddy's a go for this afternoon," Kagome answered. They were having a bonfire later in celebration of Katarin's accomplishment. Many of the hanyou who'd gone through SIMHH were invited and had already agreed to come, but Teddy was always a last minute prospect. His constitution had been wonderfully tame and stable the last few months and Kagome wanted to start introducing him to the environment outside. Eventually, she wanted him to be able to attend school. Coming out to a mostly isolated location was only a single step in that direction. "Hakkaku promised to monitor him right up until go time just to make sure."

"Rin will be pleased he can come," Sesshoumaru hummed in satisfaction. Hakkaku didn't much care for Sesshoumaru and the two performed a rather interesting dance to avoid intruding on the other's space. Kagome was only glad the wolf was still willing to come home to sleep. Sesshoumaru insisted he understood and never tried to engage her Little against his will. It was hard to tell if Ginta felt the same since he was hardly home _before_ Inuyasha's bout of measles.

Hakkaku was supposed to go back to his pack at year's end. He had a nursing position lined up at the same major hospital in Toronto that Miriam-sensei's grandchildren were at. Kagome was sad that he was leaving, but happy that he was already lined up for success in his future. Ginta was staying another year for school before also heading back to Canada.

In Hakkaku's place, Ayame was coming down to support Ginta. The pack had asked Kagome special. Apparently, Kouga's tendency to claim people on sight had landed him in a shotgun mating to a female that had taken him seriously. Her family had believed his claim indicated more personal interaction than had actually taken place and insisted on making the union permanent to uphold the female's honor. It was Kouga's chicken's come home to roost in Kagome's mind, but it left Ayame at loose ends.

Kagome didn't expect having the younger female around to be very pleasant, but she fully understood the necessity of removing the redhead from the immediate situation to gain better perspective. It was a sign of great trust and respect that they'd asked Kagome to take Ayame in. Kagome didn't know what they were going to do with the teenager, maybe Ayame would choose to attend school.

"The wolf will likely watch over Theodore while he's here," Sesshoumaru observed further.

Kagome snorted, "Him and nearly all the rest of the adults." Most of the adults attending the party were fully aware of Teddy's situation and worked in some medical capacity. Nearly all the adults were parents of hanyou though there were a few invited for their own merit. There wasn't a pressing need to hash it all out. You couldn't plan for every possible eventuality. There would always be something to surprise the planner, revealing a single overlooked contingency that spontaneously required a mad scramble to address. It was the adrenaline and spice of life.

Sesshoumaru kissed her temple and squeezed her a moment before leaning his head back against the lounger, his silver hair blew up over her shoulder obscuring the waving foliage that surrounded the property. Kagome cuddled back into his chest before joining her content family in a short nap, warm in their presence and comfortable with their closeness.

Their world wasn't perfect and it wasn't trouble free. There would always be problems that needed solving and responsibilities that needed to be met. But it was what they had made of it. Together they would face it all, as a pack, as a family, as a mated pair. They would each face their own personal tribulations but they would have the support of the rest to see them through. The key was to take pleasure and comfort in the little moments of uninterrupted togetherness.


End file.
